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PERSONAL  BEAUTY 

AND 
RACIAL  BETTERMENT 


PERSONAL  BEAUTY 

AND 

RACIAL  BETTERMENT 


BY 


KNIGHT  DUNLAP 

PROFESSOR    OF    EXPERIMENTAL    PSYCHOLOGY  IN    THE 
JOHNS    HOPKINS    UNIVEKSITY 


ST.  LOUIS 

C.  V.  MOSBY  COMPANY 

1920 


Copyright,  1920,  By  C.  V.  Mosby  Company 
(^All  Rights  Reserved) 


Press  of 

C.    V.   Mosby    Company 
St.  Louis 


FOREWORD 

From  several  persons  who  have  read  the  manu- 
script of  this  essay,  and  from  a  larger  number  who 
have  read  the  first  part,  I  have  received  criticisms 
which  are  reducible  to  two  main  points:  First, 
that  I  make  the  procreation  of  children  the  pre- 
dominant ideal  in  marriage,  minimizing  compan- 
ionship and  other  '' spiritual"  factors.  Second, 
that  although  I  call  attention  to  various  unsatis- 
factory conditions  of  sex  relations,  I  have  no  prac- 
tical reform  program  to  propose. 

Both  of  these  points  I  admit  without  apology, 
and  to  both  of  them  I  wish  to  direct  the  readers' 
attention.  I  agree  thoroughly  with  the  position 
of  the  Church  (as  I  understand  that  position),  in 
declaring  that  the  highest  '^  spiritual"  values  of 
marriage  result  when  it  is  most  perfectly  adapt- 
ated  to  its  primary  end.  As  a  psychologist,  I 
have  the  psychologist's  prejudice,  that  ideals,  in- 
tellectual analysis,  and  education  are  the  funda- 
mental forces  of  progress,  and  that  laws,  conven- 
tions, and  customs  serve  to  consolidate  and  make 
secure  the  gains  achieved  through  these  forces. 

The  first  part  of  this  essay  consists,  with  some 
additions,  of  an  address  delivered  in  April,  1917, 

11 


12  FOREWORD 

before  the  Association  of  Physical  Directors  of 
"Women's  Colleges,  the  Southern  Society  for 
Philosophy  and  Psychology,  and  the  Faculty  and 
Students  of  Randolph-Macon  College,  at  Lynch- 
burg, Va. ;  and  published  in  the  Psycliological  Re- 
vieiv  for  May,  1918. 

K.  D. 

Baltimore,  Md. 
January  1,  1920. 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

THE    SIGNIFICANCE    OF   BEAUTY 

Page 

The  Significance  op  Beauty 15 

General  Negative  Charactees 18 

Detailed  Chaeacters  of  Beauty 21 

PART  II 
THE  CONSERVATION  OF  BEAUTY 

The  Conservation  of  Beauty 55 

Practical  Steps  in  Conservation 65 

Incest  and  Inbreeding 70 

Improvement  in  Sexual  Selection 75 

The  Selection  of  Male  Parents 89 


PERSONAL  BEAUTY  AND  RACIAL 
BETTERMENT 


PART  I 

THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  BEAUTY 

Human  beauty  is  something  which  is  peren- 
nially celebrated  in  poetry,  in  song,  in  romance, 
and  in  the  petrified  conception  of  the  sculptor, 
but  less  frequently  considered  in  the  cold  analysis 
of  science.  We  are  usually  content  to  leave  the 
topic  to  the  artist  and  the  lover,  as  one  of  the  in- 
teresting and  thrilling,  but  nonessential,  matters 
of  life.  I  wish  to  suggest  a  different  conception 
of  beauty:  a  conception  of  beauty  as  something 
which,  whatever  its  importance  for  the  individual, 
is  for  the  race  and  for  civilization  of  such  pro- 
found importance  that  no  other  fundamental  con- 
sideration of  human  welfare  and  progress  can  be 
divorced  from  it.  I  shall  not  touch  upon  the  theme 
with  the  golden  fingers  of  the  artist,  but  with  the 
unemotional  digits  of  the  psychologist.  To  some, 
without  doubt,  this  procedure  will  seem  as  sacri- 
legious as  the  piercing  of  the  anatomist's  knife 
into  the  dead  human  form;  but  where  the  wel- 

15 


16  Personal  Beauty 

fare  and  progress  of  humanity  are  at  stake,  even 
these  brutal  methods  must  be  employed. 

Beauty  is  a  term  of  variable  meaning;  in  fact 
there  is  a  group  of  terms — handsome,  pretty,  at- 
tractive, charming,  etc. — whose  exact  relationship 
is  often  discussed,  and  never  settled.  The  way  in 
which  I  use  the  term  will  not  be  acceptable  to 
many  persons,  but  one  may  refonnulate  my  con- 
clusions in  his  own  way,  using  whatever  terms 
he  chooses,  and  the  validity  of  the  conclusions  will 
not  thereby  be  affected.  I  think  it  will  be  agreed, 
when  I  am  through,  that  I  have  been  discussing 
something  rather  definite  under  the  name  of 
beauty,  and  I  hope  further,  that  it  will  be  conceded 
that,  after  all,  what  I  have  been  discussing  is  that 
which  in  the  common,  and  therefore  vital,  usage 
is  actually  designated  by  the  term. 

The  familiar  proverb  tells  us  that  ''beauty  is 
only  skin  deep,"  which  nicely  exemplifies  the 
mendacity  of  proverbs ;  ugliness,  it  is  true,  is  often 
skin  deep,  but  beauty,  never.  Beauty,  as  I  hope 
to  be  able  to  show,  is  something  which  depends 
upon  the  whole  organism. 

The  conditions  of  beauty  are  in  part  negative, 
in  part  positive.  That  is  to  say,  there  are  certain 
conditions  which  a  person  must  satisfy  in  order 
to  be  classed  as  beautiful,  yet  which  do  not  in 
themselves  contribute  to  beauty;  other  conditions, 
such  that  their  fulfillment  constitutes  beauty,  or 


Racial  Betterment  17 

at  least  constitutes  a  certain  element  in  the  total 
beauty.  Among  the  negative  conditions  are,  for 
example,  the  lack  of  deformity.  A  hunchbacked 
woman  or  a  baldheaded  man  is  debarred  by  the 
deformity  mentioned  from  being  classed  as  beauti- 
ful, but  the  fact  of  having  a  straight  back  or  of 
having  hair  on  the  head  is  not  necessarily  in  it- 
self a  positive  element  of  beauty.  The  negative 
condition  is  one  which  may  be  fulfilled,  and  yet 
the  individual  not  be  beautiful  and  not  even  have 
the  corresponding  detail  of  beauty.  The  positive 
conditions,  on  the  other  hand,  are  those  which 
taken  together  in  their  fulfillment  cause  the  per- 
son to  be  classed  as  beautiful.  Some  of  these  de- 
tails may  be  present,  and  yet  on  account  of  other 
negative  or  positive  factors,  the  total  may  not 
constitute  beauty.  Nevertheless  we  say  that,  in 
these  details  at  least,  a  person  does  possess  beauty. 
This  distinction  between  positive  and  negative 
elements,  I  am  well  aware,  is  not  fundamental;  it 
is  at  best  a  distinction  of  degree  and  convenience. 
But  it  is  a  convenience,  for  purposes  of  presenta- 
tion at  least,  and  we  may  make  use  of  it  while 
noting  the  fact  that  too  great  dependence  upon  it 
is  fallacious.  I  shall  consider  first,  therefore,  the 
general  negative  conditions  in  order  to  clear  the 
way  for  a  treatment  of  the  more  detailed  condi- 
tions, which,  although  involving  both  positive  and 


18  Personal  Beauty 

negative  elements,  are  better  treated  from  the 
positive  point  of  view. 

I  shall  consider  herein,  primarily,  only  visible 
details.  Qualities  of  voice,  peculiarities  of  odor, 
tactual  details,  and  so  on,  I  shall  notice  only  in 
so  far  as  they  are  directly  associated  with  visual 
characters.  This  is  in  accordance  with  the  usual 
practice  which  makes  beauty  essentially  a  visible 
phenomenon  and  only  secondarily  a  phenomenon 
which  appeals  to  other  senses. 

General  Negative  Characters 

1.  Signs  of  race.  There  are  certain  negative 
details  of  stature,  feature,  color  and  movement 
and  habits  which  are  important  because  they  in- 
dicate in  the  first  instance  a  race  or  species  of 
the  human  family  against  which,  for  reasons 
which  may  be  instinctive  or  due  to  education, 
there  is  a  prejudice.  Facial  proportions,  for  in- 
stance, which  in  themselves  have  no  value,  may 
yet  indicate  or  suggest  a  branch  of  the  human 
family  against  whom  we  entertain  a  certain  bias. 
If  we  despise  the  Irish,  an  Irish  cast  of  coun- 
tenance cannot  be  beautiful  to  us.  If  we  have 
an  antipathy  to  the  German  or  Russian  or  the 
French  people,  the  type  of  face  which  suggests 
these  people,  even  though  there  is  no  indication 
of  actual  blood  of  the  race,  is  a  factor  making 
against  beauty.    The  commonest  instance  of  this 


Racial  Betterment  19 

sort  of  negative  condition  is  found  in  the  negroid 
characters.  Here,  where  the  suggestion  or  indica- 
tion is  of  an  inferior  race,  the  negative  condition 
is  especially  important. 

2.  Signs  of  disease,  deformity  or  weakness. 
Any  indication,  not  merely  of  physical  weakness, 
but  even  in  some  instances  of  mental  or  moral 
weakness  or  disease  is  of  decided  negative  effect. 
One  who  looks  like  an  imbecile  or  like  a  criminal 
is  never  beautiful;  one  who  seems  to  have,  or 
suggests,  a  deadly  disease,  is  to  that  extent  lack- 
ing in  beauty.  To  a  certain  degree,  these  mental 
and  moral  standards  are  relative  to  the  grade  of 
the  observer.  A  weak-minded  person  has  not  the 
objection  to  the  weak-minded  person  of  his  own 
grade  that  the  more  normal  person  has,  but  I 
suspect  that  the  person  of  low  mental  grade  has 
a  certain  preference  for  the  normal  person.  As 
regards  disease  and  deformity,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion. A  hunchbacked  or  an  anemic  man  regards 
his  characteristic  as  a  decided  bar  to  beauty. 

3.  Significant  deviation  from  the  average  is  a 
negative  characteristic,  even  if  the  deviation  can- 
not be  classed  as  a  "deformity."  Dwarfs  and 
giants,  exceedingly  thin  and  unusually  broad  in- 
dividuals; those  whose  legs  are  too  long  for  their 
bodies,  or  vice  versa;  those  whose  ears  are  mis- 
placed, or  whose  hair  is  of  an  unearthly  shade,  are 
ruled  out  by  their  oddity,  regardless  of  what  these 


20  Personal  Beauty 

peculiarities  signify.  They  may  be  good,  clever, 
or  admirable,  but  never  beautiful. 

These  details  are  in  part  relative.  Among  cer- 
tain African  tribes,  whose  men  are  uniformly  over 
seven  feet  tall,  and  as  thin  as  a  rail,  a  normal 
Anglo-Saxon  is  probably  not  beautiful.  Among 
other  African  tribes,  and  certain  islanders  of  the 
Pacific,  a  woman  is  not  considered  beautiful  un- 
less she  reaches  a  degree  and  a  distribution  of 
fatness  which  makes  her  either  repulsive  or 
comical  to  European  eyes.  This  relativity  is, 
however,  only  superficial.  The  type  which  is 
highest  in  value  tends  to  approximate  the  Eu- 
ropean type,  wherever  the  European  type  becomes 
known.  All  dark  races  prefer  white  skin,  and  it 
is  a  general  rule  that  the  female  of  the  inferior 
race  prefers  the  male  of  the  superior  race  to  the 
male  of  her  own  race,  no  matter  how  striking  the 
difference.  That  the  inferior  male  considers  the 
superior  female  more  beautiful  than  the  female 
of  his  own  race  is  indicated  everywhere,  and 
clearly  demonstrated  among  the  Turks. 

Deviation  from  the  common  type,  then,  is  a 
drawback  only  when  it  is  not  a  deviation  towards 
the  acknowledged  superior  type  of  another  race. 
The  conservative  dislike  for  the  unusual  in  gen- 
eral is  tempered  by  approval  when  the  unusual  is 
clearly  a  mark  of  racial  superiority.     This  will 


Racial  Betterment  21 

find  its  ready  explanation  when  we  consider  the 
positive  side  of  beauty. 

4.  Misplaced  sex  characters.  A  specific  form 
of  the  abnormal,  bnt  one  which  is  important 
enough  to  justify  separation  from  the  foregoing 
class,  is  the  possession  by  individuals  of  one  sex 
of  characteristics  properly  belonging  to  the  other. 
This  is  an  invariable  negative  qualification  in  the 
eyes  of  healthy  observers.  The  effeminate  man 
and  the  masculine  woman  can  be  beautiful  only  to 
the  moral  pervert.  The  importance  of  this  indi- 
cation is  very  great,  as  we  shall  see  later,  and 
however  little  it  may  mean  consciously  to  a  given 
individual,  the  habit  of  reacting  against  it  has 
been  strongly  developed  in  the  human  race. 

Detailed  Characters  of  Beauty 

So  much,  in  brief,  for  the  general  negative 
characters  of  beauty.  We  come  now  to  more  de- 
tailed characters,  which  have  on  the  whole  a  posi- 
tive value,  although  some  of  them  have  negative 
aspects  as  well. 

1.  Stature.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  fe- 
male, the  male  must  be  large,  although  not  a  giant, 
since,  as  we  have  seen,  too  great  a  deviation  from 
the  usual  is  a  negative  condition.  I  have  at  va- 
rious times  overheard  women,  who  were  discus- 
sing the  relative  handsomeness  of  two  or  several 
men,  settle  the  point  by  such  an  observation  as 


22  Personal  Beauty 

*'^  is  fully  an  incli  taller  than  5."  By  carefully 
put  questions  I  have  succeeded  in  eliciting  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  information  on  this  point 
without  revealing  the  actual  purpose  of  the  in- 
terrogation. For  example,  if  I  inquire  of  a  woman 
concerning  the  handsomeness  of  a  man  who  has  a 
general  combination  of  desirable  and  undesirable 
characteristics,  but  who  is  a  trifle  below  medium 
height,  I  very  frequently  obtain,  in  her  first  state- 
ment, a  criticism  of  his  stature,  followed  by  a  con- 
sideration of  his  other  attributes;  indicating  that 
in  her  estimation  size  is  of  paramount  importance. 
The  determining  factor  is  not,  of  course,  mere 
height  but  height  combined  with  lateral  develop- 
ment not  deviating  markedly  from  the  average 
proportion.  The  tall  man  of  bean-pole  build  is 
not  considered  attractive.  Yet,  a  positive  element 
of  height  can  outweigh  a  considerable  element  of 
disproportion,  and  a  taller  man,  whose  propor- 
tions are  in  themselves  worse  than  those  of  a 
shorter  man,  is  usually  considered  the  handsomer. 
This  preference  for  stature  undoubtedly  harks 
back  to  more  primitive  times,  when  it  was  above 
all  important  that  man  should  be  a  fighter  and 
hunter,  in  order  to  secure  food  for  his  wife  and 
children,  and  protect  them  against  wild  beasts 
and  against  the  designs  of  other  males.  Espe- 
cially was  this  important  during  the  periods  when 
the  woman  was  pregnant,  or  nursing  a  child.    It 


Racial  Betterment  23 

is  highly  probable  that  in  ancient  times  the  nega- 
tive rule  against  abnormal  size  did  not  apply,  since 
every  increase  in  physical  power,  even  if  carried 
to  the  extreme  of  gigantic  development,  was  a  dis- 
tinct advantage. 

It  is  sometimes  alleged  that  the  woman 's  prefer- 
ence is  not  for  the  large  man  in  an  absolute  sense, 
but  for  the  man  larger  than  herself;  either  because 
of  a  natural  wish  for  a  husband  to  whom  she  is 
inferior;  to  whom  she  can  give  a  tribute  of  wor- 
ship and  deference;  or  else,  that  it  has  developed 
through  the  necessity  of  the  greater  strength  on 
the  part  of  the  man  in  order  that  he  might  cap- 
ture the  woman,  and  carry  her  away  from  her 
parental  habitat,  to  his  own  dwelling.  Both  of 
these  suggestions  are  highly  unplausible.  Mar- 
riage by  capture,  although  a  good  hypothesis  for 
popular  writers,  probably  never  was  at  any  time 
an  institution  of  any  more  importance  or  actu- 
ality than  it  is  at  the  present  day.  Psychologi- 
cally, the  theory  is  based  on  the  assumption  that 
woman  is  naturally  opposed  to  the  marital  rela- 
tion, which  assumption  is  a  merry  jest,  to  say  the 
least.  Historically,  there  is  no  evidence  for  the 
theory  of  capture  except  as  a  limited  and  tempo- 
rary phenomenon.  As  for  the  supposition  of  an 
unexplained  instinct  to  prefer  a  dominant  partner, 
I  see  no  support  for  it,  except  in  so  far  as  the  prac- 
tical consideration  I  have  advanced  may  itself 


24  Personal  Beauty 

lead  to  this  preference  as  a  secondary  manifesta- 
tion. It  is  true  that  there  are  women  today  who 
openly  state  that  the  mates  they  want  are  those 
who  can  completely  dominate  them ;  and  that  snch 
potential  masters  are  the  only  men  who  interest 
them.  These  cases  (a  number  have  been  directly 
reported  to  me)  are  not  all  to  be  explained  on  the 
same  basis,  although  the  primary  factor  in  every 
case  is  the  admiration  for  the  strong  man.  In 
some  cases,  the  preference  is  distinctly  a  path- 
ological development;  in  others,  it  is  pretended 
by  the  woman  as  an  explanation  for  the  fact  that 
men  are  not  interested  in  her.  In  many  cases, 
however,  the  preference  is  the  expression  of  an 
arbitrary  standard  which  is  manifested  usually  in 
less  egotistical  ways.  Where  a  scale  of  values  is 
accepted,  there  is  commonly  a  more  or  less  explicit 
adoption  of  a  minimal  acceptable  value;  the 
stronger  man  is  the  more  desirable;  a  man  who 
measures  up  to  a  certain  minimum  will  be  accept- 
able. In  most  cases,  the  minimal  standard 
adopted  is  the  father,  a  brother,  or  some  other  im- 
pressive individual  in  real  life  or  in  fiction.  In 
the  case  of  a  strongly  egotistical  woman,  who  sets 
a  high  value  on  her  own  potentialities,  the  stand- 
ard is  herself;  the  man  less  forceful  than  herself 
is  below  the  minimum. 

In  this,  I  seem  to  be  confusing  physical  strength 
with  various  sorts  of  power;  perhaps  I  am;  but, 


Racial  Betterment  25 

as  I  am  trying  to  point  out,  the  basis  of  power  is 
muscular,  and  admiration  for  physical  prowess 
still  retains  a  primacy  when  it  is  a  matter  of  the 
fundamental  attraction  of  the  woman  to  the  man; 
and  all  I  am  trying  to  establish  at  this  point  is 
that  there  is  no  primary  desire  of  the  woman  for 
a  man  who  is  able  to  dominate  her  physically.  On 
the  contrary,  the  woman  would  prefer,  if  other 
considerations  did  not  prevent,  the  mate  whom  she 
can  control  physically  and  in  every  other  way, 
for  the  instinct  to  dominate  is  inherent  in  every 
normal  human  being. 

Under  present  conditions,  the  preference  of  the 
large  woman  is  accentuated,  and  that  of  the  small 
woman  reduced,  by  social  factors,  especially  the 
fear  of  ridicule.  The  weakness  of  the  small  man 
is  made  conspicuous  by  the  contrast  with  a  giant 
wife;  compared,  on  the  other  hand,  with  a  di- 
minutive wife,  his  inefficiency  is  less  emphasized. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  male,  the  ques- 
tion of  stature  is  less  simple.  There  seems  to  be 
no  general  preference  for  small  women  or  for 
large  women;  but  a  truly  relative  preference  for 
smaller  women.  Of  course,  I  am  well  aware  that 
there  is  a  wide  range  of  individual  preferences, 
not  all  of  which  are  explicable  from  available 
data;  but  I  am  speaking  of  generalities,  which  are 
certainly  discoverable,  in  spite  of  individual  dif- 
ferences.   This  general  relative  preference  in  the 


26  Personal  Beauty 

matter  of  stature  is  complicated  by  the  curious 
double  preference  of  the  male,  which  is  so  strik- 
ingly demonstrated  by  theatrical  studies,  and  to 
which  I  shall  make  brief  reference  later. 

The  primitive  reason  which  leads  woman  to 
prefer  a  large  man  has  no  correspondence  in  the 
necessities  of  the  male.  The  male  has  not  the  need 
for  protection  at  certain  periods  which  the  woman 
has.  While  the  addition  of  a  husky  female  to 
the  savage's  fighting  force  would  seem  to  be  a 
prime  advantage,  the  advantage  is  largely  lost 
because  at  the  precise  times  when  the  aggressive 
resources  of  the  family  are  most  fully  needed,  the 
woman  is  not  in  condition  to  exert  her  strength, 
without  serious  injury  to  herself.  The  physical 
strength  of  the  woman  is  not  to  be  counted  on, 
and  hence  the  stronger  woman  is  not  a  greater 
asset  to  the  family,  and  hence  no  more  desirable. 

It  is  true,  there  have  been  and  still  are,  races 
in  which  the  physical  strength  of  the  women  has 
been  counted  on,  especially  for  agricultural  du- 
ties (e.  g.,  the  American  Indians) ;  and  among 
them,  possibly  (I  am  not  certain  on  this  point), 
stature  has  been  a  mark  of  beauty.  But  where 
female  strength  is  counted  on,  it  is  necessarily 
utilized  at  times  when  grave  damage  is  done  to 
the  woman,  and  those  races  which  have  counted 
on  it  have  gone  down.  The  races  which  have 
early  developed  chivalry,  as  we  may  well  desig- 


Racial  Betterment  27 

nate  the  protective  attitude,  are  the  races  which 
have  developed  civilization,  and  which  must  con- 
tinue to  dominate  the  world  unless  civilization  is 
to  be  abandoned,  and  the  human  race  plunged 
downward  into  bestial  degeneracy. 

Stature,  therefore,  except  in  so  far  as  it  may  be 
involved  indirectly  in  some  of  the  factors  which 
I  shall  yet  consider,  is  not  and  cannot  be  a  mark 
of  female  beauty  in  a  civilized  race.  On  the  other 
hand,  by  this  very  fact,  the  preference  for  a  part- 
ner whom  he  can  dominate  is  allowed  full  sway 
in  the  male.  The  woman  would  have  the  same 
preference,  as  I  pointed  out  a  moment  ago,  were 
it  not  checked  by  other  factors. 

I  may  digress  for  a  moment,  to  remind  you  that 
in  a  family  one  person  must  control.  This  is  not 
a  theory,  but  an  empirical  fact  against  which  ar- 
gument is  futile.  Economic  conditions  which  are 
as  yet  but  dreamed  of,  especially  those  conditions 
which  result  from  the  greater  and  greater  use  of 
machinery,  may  in  future  change  this;  but  it  was 
the  law  of  the  primitive  family,  and  even  yet  we 
have  not  reached  a  stage  of  civilization  in  which 
a  joint  legislative  authority  is  possible.  In  the 
past  it  has  been,  the  male  who  has  controlled,  but 
that  may  be  changed  in  the  future.  It  is  true  that 
Bachofen  and  others  have  tried  to  establish  the 
doctrine  of  the  matriarchiate  (the  rule  of  women) 
as  the  primitive  family  system,  but  the  confusion 


28  Personal  Beauty 

on  wliicli  this  theory  was  based  has  been  readily 
exposed.  Never  in  the  history  of  the  globe  did 
woman  have  the  political  and  social  power  she 
holds  today,  and  suffrage  cannot  increase  it. 

2.  Bodily  proportions.  In  modern  civilization 
there  has  grown  up  an  immodesty  which  was  lack- 
ing in  more  ancient  cultures.  We  are  ashamed  of 
our  bodies.  Whether  the  practice  of  concealing  the 
body  is  the  cause  of  our  uncleanness  of  mind,  or 
whether  our  obscenity  is  rather  the  cause  of  the 
concealment,  is  a  debated  question.  Whatever 
may  be  my  general  estimate  of  the  Japanese,  I 
cannot  but  admire  their  wonderful  cleanness  of 
mind,  which  makes  for  them  clothing  a  detail 
which  has  no  bearing  on  modesty. 

Among  the  Greeks,  who,  as  you  know,  were  in 
many  respects  more  pure-minded  than  we  are, 
bodily  conformation  was  an  important  detail  in 
beauty.  And,  in  fact,  it  is  today  amongst  us,  both 
in  a  shame-faced  way  in  daily  life,  and  more  cred- 
itably when  we  throw  off  our  prudishness  in  the 
presence  of  plastic  and  pictorial  art,  and  in  the 
theater.  We  are  skirting  here  a  vital  and  pressing 
problem  of  the  present  moment,  on  which  I  should 
like  to  take  the  time  to  make  you -face  some  prob- 
lems we  all  tend  to  ignore,  but  I  must  not  digress 
further. 

Our  standards  of  bodily  development  are  still, 
in  the  main,  Greek.    There  are  certain  proportions 


Racial  Betterment  29 

which  are  judged  both  by  the  artist  and  the  lay- 
man to  be  the  ideal  of  beauty.  In  this  we  are  of 
course  swayed  largely  by  the  limitations  of  our 
education,  which  on  these  matters  is  artificial; 
probably  there  would  be  a  greater  difference  in 
racial  ideals,  if  conditions  were  more  natural. 

The  simplest  explanation  for  the  accepted  ideal 
of  form  would  be  that  it  is  the  average  form  of 
the  healthy  individual.  This  explanation,  I  think, 
is  not  supportable.  Among  the  Greeks  and  Ko- 
mans,  for  example,  the  ideal  ankle,  for  a  woman 
at  least,  was  a  small  ankle,  not  a  medium-sized 
one.  Among  us,  a  small  foot  has  been  desirable; 
so  much  so  that  women  have  been  compelled  to 
wear  shoes  which,  by  raising  the  heel  several 
inches,  make  the  ground-base  of  the  shoe  about 
two  thirds  the  real  length  of  the  foot.  This  proce- 
dure makes  the  foot  seem  shorter,  or  at  least  it 
did  until  the  recent  shortening  of  the  skirt 
brought  the  artifice  out  where  it  cannot  be  over- 
looked. One  of  the  most  important  and  desira- 
ble effects  of  the  permanent  adoption  of  sensible 
clothing  by  women  will  be  the  allowing  of  the 
foot  to  retain  its  natural  form.  Of  body-form, 
which  is  by  rights  the  fundamental  consideration 
in  beauty,  I  shall  say  nothing  further,  because 
our  standards  are  so  obscure.  The  subject  is  in 
need  of  thorough  investigation  by  the  methods  of 


30  Personal  Beauty 

comparative  anatomy,  and  above  all,  of  social 
psychology. 

3.  The  Features.  "Whatever  the  cause  of  our 
concealment  of  the  body,  it  has  led  to  an  emphasis 
on  the  anatomical  details  of  the  face  which  could 
not  be  found  in  more  primitive  times.  Leaving 
out  of  consideration  the  general  shape  of  the  face 
and  head,  which  are  probably  important  mainly 
as  racial  signs,  we  may  consider  briefly  the  chin, 
the  nose,  the  eyes  and  the  ears. 

That  there  is  a  preference  on  the  part  of  both 
sexes,  and  in  the  consideration  of  both  sexes,  for 
a  well-developed  chin,  is  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge.  The  reason  for  this  preference  is  less 
evident,  and  in  fact  I  can  here  indicate  only  a 
strong  probability.  Eacial  factors  are  involved, 
of  course,  but  there  seems  to  be  a  more  general 
foundation  which  is  vaguely  involved  in  the  com- 
monplace statement,  that  the  possession  of  a  chin 
is  one  of  the  conspicuous  points  which  differen- 
tiate man  from  the  beasts.  This  is  obviously  true; 
the  vital  question  is:  What  are  the  direct  conse- 
quences of  this  structural  peculiarity?  This  ques- 
tion can  be  answered  by  reference  to  compara- 
tive anatomy  and  to  the  psychology  of  the  thought 
processes.  The  projecting  chin  gives  room  in  the 
mouth  cavity  for  the  human  tongue,  which  is 
strikingly  different  from  the  brute  tongue.  The 
tongue  of  the  lower  animal  is  a  long  thin  strip  of 


Racial  Betterment  31 

muscle ;  the  tongue  of  homo  sapiens  is  a  thick  mus- 
cular mass.  A  somewhat  exaggerated  comparison 
is  to  a  leather  strap,  in  one  case,  and  a  frog  seated 
in  the  mouth  in  the  other  case.  We  have  now  ad- 
vanced the  question  one  step  farther,  to  ask  what 
may  be  the  advantage,  if  any,  in  the  form  of  the 
human  tongue. 

The  ^nimal  tongue  is  certainly  just  as  well 
adapted  to  the  purposes  of  obtaining  and  prepar- 
ing food,  as  the  human.  In  some  cases,  it  is  even 
more  efficient.  But  the  human  tongue  is  an  im- 
portant instrument  in  the  production  of  the  most 
human  of  all  attributes,  language.  Language  is 
not  merely  the  means  of  communicating  thought; 
it  is,  as  philologists  have  long  known,  and  as  psy- 
chologists have  been  forced  somewhat  unwillingly 
to  admit,  the  principal  means  of  thinking.  While 
it  is  possible  to  think  without  language,  language- 
less  thought  is  primitive  and  inefficient  in  the  com- 
plex conditions  of  civilization,  and  it  is  by  no 
means  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  develop- 
ment of  language  is  a  large  part  of  the  develop- 
ment of  thought. 

Of  course,  it  is  not  to  be  said  that  in  any  specific 
case  a  large  tongue  is  an  index  of  efficient  think- 
ing, or  that  a  relatively  smaller  chin  indicates  nec- 
essarily a  relatively  smaller  tongue,  or  that  the 
converse  of  either  of  these  propositions  is  true. 
But  on  the  whole,  the  development  of  the  chin 


32  Personal  Beauty 

is  concomitant  with  the  development  of  thought, 
and  hence,  in  races  or  large  groups,  an  index  of 
mental  development.  It  is  worthy  of  note  here, 
that  the  marks  of  beauty  will  be  found  throughout 
to  be  these  generalized  characters,  which  in  spe- 
cific cases  may  not  be  associated  with  the  funda- 
mental factors  which  have  made  them  important. 
The  nose  and  the  mouth  are  beauty-characters 
which  are  probably  more  exclusively  racial  in 
\  their  significance  than  the  chin.  The  broad  flat 
nose  and  the  thick  Avide  lips  are  often  repulsive 
because  they  suggest  the  African,  if  for  no  other 
reason.  But  I  suspect  that  the  thick  lips  are  also 
a  defect  because  they  are  in  themselves  a  hin- 
drance to  efficient  speech,  and  more  vitally  because 
they  connote  an  inefficient  formation  of  the  mouth, 
palate  and  glottis.  Yet  it  is  necessary  here  again 
to  point  out  that  any  of  these  details  may  be 
faulty  in  a  particular  case,  and  yet  the  others  be 
so  well  adapted  that  they  more  than  compensate; 
and  that  there  may  be  in  many  cases  language, 
efficient  for  thinking,  but  inefficient  for  communi- 
cation. Here  as  everywhere,  our  beauty  judg- 
ments are  based  on  conditions  which  are  general, 
and  to  which  there  are  many  sharp  exceptions. 

As  regards  the  teeth,  we  are  in  no  serious  doubt. 
The  beautiful  teeth  are  the  sound,  regular  weap- 
ons, which  by  their  form  and  color  give  unmis- 


Racial  Betterment  33 

takable  evidence  of  being  efficient  for  chewing  as 
well  as  for  primitive  methods  of  warfare. 

While  the  practical  indications  of  the  mouth  are 
important,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  we  should  by 
no  means  overlook  the  probability  of  a  sexual 
significance  to  the  evaluation  of  which  the  consid- 
eration of  other  beauty  characters  will  rapidly 
drive  us.  I  need  not  remind  you  that  popular 
theory  as  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  and  as  em- 
bodied in  literature  of  all  ages,  considers  both  the 
mouth  and  the  nose  as  practical  indexes  of  the 
sex-organs;  I  should  like  to  express  the  opinion 
that  popular  theory,  even  popular  superstition,  is 
the  smoke  which  always  indicates  some  fire.  This 
particular  popular  belief  is  one  on  which  it  seems 
to  me  it  would  be  worth  while  for  directors  of 
physical  culture  to  make  statistical  observations. 

I  need  not  point  out  the  sexual  function  of  the 
olfactory  organ  in  the  nose  of  the  lower  ani- 
mal; but  I  ought  to  warn  you  against  the  falla- 
cious opinion  that  in  the  human  animal  the  nose 
has  universally  lost  that  function.  On  the  con- 
trary, in  a  large  proportion  of  the  species  that 
function  has  become  more  complex.  I  may  add 
also,  that  in  addition  to  the  significant  fact  that 
the  membrane  lining  a  large  part  of  the  nasal  cav- 
ities is  erectile  tissue,  there  are  definite  psycho- 
logical observations,  (none  published,  I  believe), 


34  Personal  Beauty 

which  throw  experimental  light  on  the  sexual  re- 
lations of  the  nose. 

That  both  the  eyes  and  ears  are  beauty  marks, 
and  that,  in  the  female  especially,  they  have  been 
selected  for  especial  emphasis  by  lovers  and  poets, 
you  are  well  aware.  Both  love  and  poetizing,  as 
most  of  us  well  know  from  our  own  experience,  are 
conditions  of  irresponsibility  in  which  the  funda- 
mental instincts  and  habits  have  large  sway;  and 
the  first  condition  usually  brings  on  the  second; 
accordingly  the  beauty-points  which  fix  the  atten- 
tion of  poets  demand  our  attention.  But  there  is 
little  to  offer  at  present  in  the  way  of  analysis  of 
these.  Aside  from  the  indication  of  physical  con- 
dition which  the  eyes  afford  (and  every  physician 
makes  use  of  these  indications) ,  the  importance  of 
the  eye  is  probably  largely  racial.  The  blue  or  the 
black,  the  large  or  the  small,  are  not  in  themselves 
of  moment,  but  they  indicate  stocks  from  which 
we  expect  certain  other  characters,  mental  and 
physical.  The  same  general  consideration  is  prob- 
ably involved  in  ear  preferences.  This  is  how^ever 
by  no  means  the  whole  story.  Anyone  who  has 
studied  the  religious  and  art  symbolism  of  primi- 
tive peoples,  and  of  people  not  so  primitive  (I  do 
not  refer  to  the  crude  and  artificial  studies  of  the 
Freudians)  cannot  help  but  see  very  definite  rea- 
sons for  the  fascination  of  the  eye  and  ear,  rea- 
sons   which    are    more    appropriately    discussed 


Racial  Betterment  35 

amongst  psychologists  tlian  before  a  general  au- 
dience. 

Before  passing  on  to  the  next  topic,  I  wish  to 
protect  myself  from  possible  misapprehension  by 
disclaiming  any  taint  of  phrenology  or  blackford- 
ism  in  the  preceding  discussion.  The  significance 
of  cranial  and  facial  characters  must  be  worked 
out  on  the  lines  of  physiology  and  genetics;  psy- 
chologists have  no  sympathy  with  the  various 
systems  of  so-called  character  analysis  wiiich  at- 
tempt to  decide  from  a  casual  examination  of  an 
individual  what  his  intellectual  and  moral  pecu- 
liarities are  in  detail. 

4.  Hair.  The  hair  which  adorns  the  human 
body  (or  disfigures  it,  as  the  case  may  be),  is  of 
two  sorts,  in  regard  to  its  physiological  conditions 
and  significance,  as  well  as  to  its  regional  distribu- 
tion. The  hair  of  the  head,  or  pate-hair,  is  the  one 
sort,  and  the  body-hair,  including  the  face-hair,  is 
the  other. 

The  conditions  which  govern  the  growth  of  the 
pate-hair  are  not  definitely  known,  but  are  proba- 
bly connected  with  bodily  changes  which  have 
other  important  efi'ects.  That  is  to  say,  the  stimu- 
lation of  the  growth  of  the  hair,  or  the  failure  of 
its  vitality,  are  probably  due  to  changes  in  the 
internal  secretions  (hormones)  of  the  organism, 
although  it  is  not  known  which  of  the  secretions 
are  the  important  ones  in  this  connection.    It  is 


36  Personal  Beauty 

probable  that  another  effect  of  the  internal 
changes  which  produce  baldness  is  a  lessening  of 
the  resistance  of  the  organism,  so  that  the  bald- 
lieaded  man  cannot  stand  the  muscular  exertion  or 
the  nervous  strain  of  which  the  hairy-headed  man 
is  capable.  At  any  rate,  baldness  is  a  fatal  bar  to 
beauty,  both  in  the  male  and  the  female,  although 
to  many  persons  (men  especially)  an  individual 
of  the  opposite  sex  whose  pate-hair  is  exception- 
ally abundant  is  repulsive.*  Another  indication  of 
the  dependence  of  the  pate-hair  on  metabolism  in 
other  regions  is  found  in  the  apparent  connection 
between  hair  and  temperament.  It  is  difficult  to 
conceive  of  a  baldheaded  musical  genius  or  artist ; 
although  even  to  the  rule  implied  here,  exceptions 
do  occur.  Temperament,  and  all  emotional  fac- 
tors, as  we  now  know,  depend  largely  on  the  bodily 
metabolism,  especially  on  the  functions  of  the  in- 
ternally secreting  glands.  The  quantitative  hair 
character,  therefore,  may  in  all  probability  be  re- 
duced to  an  indication  of  physical  vigor;  and  phys- 
ical vigor  is  far  more  important,  as  a  beauty  asset, 
than  mental  ability.  "Whether  the  popular  belief 
that  the  mental  ability  of  a  child  is  in  the  inverse 
proportion  to  the  growth  of  his  hair,  has  any  foun- 
dation, and    whether   a   similar   rule    holds   for 


*The  attractiveness  of  a  thick  head  of  hair  on  a  man,  from  a  woman's 
point  of  view,  is  largely  tactual.  A  number  of  women  have  analysed  this 
as  depending  on  the  pleasure  they  would  derive  from  running  their  fingers 
through  the  hair.     This  point  is  substantiated  by  actual  behavior. 


Racial  Betterment  37 

adults,  I  shall  not  discuss,  as  I  might  be  accused 
of  being  prejudiced. 

The  other  details  of  the  pate-hair  character: 
fineness  or  coarseness,  straightness  or  kinkiness, 
color  and  contour  of  distribution,  are  largely  im- 
portant as  indicators  of  race  or  stock;  yet  fine- 
ness, has  a  direct  sex  value  in  its  greater  pleas- 
ingness  to  touch.  It  may  also  be  true  that  color 
has  a  direct  value;  that  the  masculine  preference 
for  red-haired  women  which  is  so  frequent,  and  of 
which  the  Elizabethan  and  pre-Elizabethan  erotic 
writings  are  so  full,  is  not  due  solely  to  the  asso- 
ciation of  the  hair  color  with  the  ardent  tempera- 
ment which  without  doubt  was  a  characteristic 
of  the  red-haired  stocks ;  but  is  in  part  at  least  due 
to  the  direct  effect  of  the  visual  stimulation. 

All  parts  of  the  body  except  the  palms  of  the 
hands  and  the  soles  of  the  feet,  and  certain  other 
small  areas,  are  covered  with  fine  hair,  which  in 
the  pre-adolescent  person  are  usually  so  fine  and 
so  colorless  that  they  are  hardly  noticeable.  AVith 
the  beginning  of  puberty,  the  axillary  hair  (the 
hair  of  the  arm  pits),  and  the  hair  of  the  pubic 
region  in  both  sexes  begins  to  develop,  increasing 
in  diameter  as  well  as  in  length  and  in  pigmenta- 
tion. In  the  male  also,  but  slightly  later,  the  face 
hair  undergoes  similar  development,  and  still 
later  the  hair  on  the  chest,  abdomen,  and  limbs  of 
the  male  develops  in  manners  which  differ  greatly 


38  Personal  Beauty 

in  different  individuals.  In  the  typical,  function- 
ally perfect  woman,  on  the  other  hand,  the  body- 
hair,  except  in  the  restricted  regions  mentioned, 
remains  as  fine  and  as  colorless  as  in  the  child. 

This  hair  development  is  not  associated  with 
sexual  ripening  in  a  chance  way,  but  is  controlled 
by  the  fundamental  sex  glands.  These  glands  not 
only  produce  the  germ  cells  (the  egg  and  the  sper- 
matozoon) whose  union  creates  the  life  of  a  new 
individual;  they  secrete  also,  into  the  blood 
stream,  hormones,  i.  e.,  substances  which  pro- 
foundly influence  the  growth  of  various  parts  of 
the  organism.  The  internal  secretions  of  the  male 
glands  produce  those  changes  in  the  vocal  organs 
which  are  indicated  by  the  voice  becoming  heav- 
ier and  lower;  stimulate  the  growth  of  the  body- 
hair  in  the  manner  above  indicated;  and  undoubt- 
edly promote  those  structural  and  functional 
changes  which  are  evidenced  in  the  tendencies  of 
feeling  and  action  distinctive  of  the  male.  If  the 
glands  are  removed  in  infancy,  these  changes  do 
not  occur.  The  secretions  of  the  ovaries,  on  the 
other  hand,  seem  to  inhibit  the  growth  of  body- 
hair,  to  accelerate  those  structural  changes  in  the 
muscles,  glands  and  skeleton  which  differentiate 
the  woman  from  the  man,  and  promote  those  func- 
tional modifications  which  make  the  feelings  and 
emotions  of  each  sex  a  sealed  book  to  the  other. 

It  may  be  said  of  the  important  races  of  man- 


Racial  Betterment  39 

kind  that,  in  general,  the  development  of  the  face- 
and  body-hair  in  the  male,  and  the  absence  thereof 
in  the  female  (except  in  the  three  limited  areas), 
are  alike  an  indication  of  fitness  for  parenthood. 
The  decline  of  the  sex  function  in  old  age  is  usu- 
ally marked  by  significant  changes  in  these  de- 
tails. There  are  of  course  many  apparently  anom- 
alous cases,  some  of  which  may  be  explained  by 
glandular  details  into  which  the  limitations  of 
time  forbid  us  to  go;  but  in  spite  of  these  cases, 
the  social  verdict  is  uniform.  The  hairlessness  of 
the  female  face  and  body,  and  the  hairiness  of  the 
male  face  (or  the  evidence  that  the  hair  grows, 
although  shaved  off)  are  important  elements  of 
beauty.  The  male  body-hair  has  little  value,  be- 
cause of  its  irregularity,  and  the  fact  of  its  usual 
concealment. 

There  are  a  number  of  interesting  problems 
which  arise  in  connection  with  the  body-hair. 
Theoretically,  the  pubic  hair  should  be  as  beauti- 
ful, at  least,  as  the  pate-hair;  yet  the  Greeks,  who 
set  our  official  standards,  did  not  think  so.*  As  to 
axillary  hair,  there  is  lacking  information  as  to 
its  indicatory  value.  It  is  an  interesting  observa- 
tion, however,  and  one  of  no  little  psychological 
importance  that  in  recent  years  when  the  morbid 

*I  am  informed  by  Professor  Robinson  that  the  Greek  women  uniformly 
removed  the  pubic  hair  (usually  by  singeing),  probably  on  account  of 
pediculi.     That  the  esthetic  standard  is  a  result  of  this  practice  is  plausible. 


40  Personal  Beauty 

shame  of  the  body  was  somewhat  lessened,  and 
young  women  began  to  expose  their  arm  pits 
freely  in  the  ball  room  and  theater,  some  removed 
the  axillary  hair,  and  others  did  not.  A  little  later, 
the  practice  of  removing  the  hair  became  prac- 
tically universal,  and  now  the  hair  is  seldom  seen. 
Probably  the  conflict  of  opinion  in  these  matters 
is  really  between  the  man's  judgment  of  beauty 
and  the  woman's.  But  we  must  pass  over  these 
details,  and  hurry  on  with  our  main  problem. 

It  is  evident  now  that  whether  there  are  other 
considerations  or  not,  the  most  important  element 
in  the  beauty  of  any  individual  is  the  evidence  of 
her  (or  his)  fitness  for  the  function  of  procreating 
healthy  children  of  the  highest  type  of  efficiency, 
according  to  the  standards  of  the  race ;  and  ability 
to  protect  these  children.  The  positive  beauty 
characters  we  have  already  examined  are  clearly 
such  marks  of  ability  to  perpetuate  the  species  in 
the  finest  and  noblest  way,  and  the  characters  we 
shall  now  consider  strengthen  the  interpretation. 

5.  Fat.  Here  again  there  are  racial  differ- 
ences, but  amongst  the  European  races,  no  ra- 
cial indications.  We  may  leave  out  of  considera- 
tion the  Africans  and  the  South  Sea  Islanders, 
with  their  criteria  of  beauty-fat  which  seem  so 
odd  to  us,  but  which  are  quite  intelligible  when 
viewed  in  the  light  of  racial  characters,  and  con- 
sider Western  conditions  and  standards. 


Racial  Betterment  41 

A  certain  amount  of  fatty  tissue  is  normal,  and 
is  essential  for  the  health  of  the  individual.  Fat 
constitutes  a  store  of  reserve  material,  which  may 
be  drawn  on  in  time  of  unusual  need ;  and  without 
it  endurance  is  limited.  This  reserve  store  is 
probably  not  so  important  at  present  as  it  was  in 
primitive  times,  when  man  lived  in  a  hand-to- 
mouth  way,  uncertain  today  what  the  food  supply 
would  be  day  after  tomorrow.  On  the  other  hand, 
beyond  a  certain  amount,  fat  is  an  encumbrance, 
impeding  the  operation  of  many  organs,  and  thus 
limiting  the  efficiency  of  the  individual,  and  also 
is  in  itself  a  symptom  of  faulty  organic  function- 
ing of  some  kind.  We  are  not  surprised  therefore 
to  find  that  beauty  demands  just  the  right  degree 
of  leanness;  just  the  degree  which  is  found  in  the 
most  vigorous  individual. 

The  standards  are  somewhat  different  for  the 
two  sexes,  because  the  anatomical  conditions  and 
physiological  necessities  are  different.  In  the  fe- 
male, especially  in  the  young  female,  there  is  a 
special  layer  of  fatty  tissue  underlying  the  skin, 
which  is  absent  in  the  male.  This  gives  her  the 
roundness  and  softness  of  outline  which  is  essen- 
tial to  the  perfection  of  feminine  beauty,  and  also 
prevents  her  from  feeling  the  cold  so  much  as  the 
male  does.  Possibly  also  it  explains  why  she 
swims  more  easily.  (It  is  a  fact  that  women  are  as 
a  class  far  better  swimmers ;  this  has  been  ascribed 


42  Personal  Beauty 

to  tlie  better  development  of  tlie  legs,  but  this 
reason  is  hardly  sufficient,  since  it  has  been  shown 
that  leg  action  is  the  least  important  factor  in 
swimming.) 

The  softness  and  roundness  of  contour  of  the 
female  is  beautiful,  because  it  is  the  mark  of  phys- 
ical fitness.  The  fatty  layer  is  supposed  to  be  an 
extra  reserve  supply  of  food  material,  laid  up 
against  the  heavy  demands  which  are  made  by 
child-bearing,  and  in  still  another  way  protects 
her  in  that  supreme  process,  of  whose  splendid 
fruition  beauty  is  the  glorious  blossom.  When 
age  withers,  through  the  absorption  of  the  adipose 
tissue,  primary  beauty  is  on  the  decline,  and  un- 
less it  be  replaced  by  the  secondary  beauty  appro- 
priate to  advancing  years,  the  drama  of  life  be- 
comes a  tragedy.  And  indeed,  the  great  fact  that 
we  all  must  face  at  some  time,  that  the  strength 
and  vigor  of  our  prime  is  past,  and  that  the  time 
when  the  almond  tree  shall  flourish  and  the  grass- 
hopper become  a  burden  advances  upon  us,  is  usu- 
ally announced  to  a  woman  in  the  discovery  of 
w^rinkles  due  to  the  slipping  from  her  of  her  sub- 
cutaneous robe  of  office. 

6.  Complexion.  The  tint  of  the  skin,  of  course, 
is  largely  a  racial  indication,  but  in  certain  re- 
spects, the  tint,  as  well  as  the  texture,  is  an  index 
of  health  and  vigor.  The  standard  of  beauty  in 
complexion,  whether  light  or  dark,  is  that  which 


Racial  Betterment  43 

goes  with  the  full  bloom  of  sexual  vigor,  when  the 
human  organism  is  at  its  perfect  development  for 
the  perpetuation  of  the  species.  This  is  so  obvious 
that  it  would  be  superfluous  to  discuss  it  further. 

7.  Muscular  tonicity.  The  voluntary  muscles 
of  the  body,  i.  e.,  the  muscles  of  the  face,  scalp, 
trunk,  arms  and  legs,  are  kept  in  a  condition  of 
tonus,  by  nerve  currents  constantly  supplied  to 
them  by  the  motor  nerves.  Tonus  is  a  state  of  par- 
tial contraction,  which  constitutes  the  readiness 
for  action  of  the  muscle.  If  the  motor  nerve  trunk 
which  supplies  any  voluntary  muscle  be  severed, 
the  muscle  at  once  becomes  flabby.  The  tonus 
does  not  depend  entirely  on  the  nerves  which  stim- 
ulate the  muscle.  In  order  to  be  stimulated,  the 
muscle  must  be  in  the  appropriate  chemical  con- 
dition to  receive  the  stimulus,  and  this  chemical 
condition  is  dependent  not  only  on  the  general 
metabolic  conditions  of  nutrition,  fatigue  and  rest, 
but  also  on  the  specific  actions  of  hormones  pro- 
duced by  several  of  the  internally  secreting 
glands,  notably  the  adrenalin  produced  by  the 
adrenal  glands. 

In  case  of  injury  or  disease  affecting  certain 
parts  of  the  nervous  system,  certain  muscles  be- 
come flabby.  In  case  of  general  flabbiness,  it  is 
of  course  not  evident  immediately  whether  the 
primary  defect  is  in  the  nervous  system,  or  in 
the  metabolism  of  the  body.    In  any  case,  flabbi- 


44  Personal  Beauty 

ness,  local  or  general,  is  a  symptom  of  inefficiency 
in  bodily  functioning,  and  although  under  mod- 
ern conditions  the  flabby  individual  may  be  able 
to  make  his  living  at  his  particular  restricted  oc- 
cupation, flabbiness  unfits  him  for  parenthood 
now,  just  as  much  as  it  did  in  the  stone  age.  We 
can't  breed  husky  children  from  flabby  parents. 

The  flabbiness  which  is  due  not  to  a  specific  in- 
jury or  disease,  but  to  insufficient  vitality,  is  first 
shown  by  the  muscles  of  the  face.  That  is  to  say, 
it  is  first  shown  to  the  casual  observer;  a  medical 
examination  would  probably  find  it  in  other  mus- 
cles first.  It  is  not  entirely  due  to  the  concealing 
of  the  body  that  the  facial  muscles  have  become 
known  as  the  muscles  of  expression.  Failures  of 
tonicity  in  these  muscles  are  conspicuous ;  the  sag- 
ging eyelids  or  corners  of  the  mouth,  or  cheek 
muscles  and  other  modifications  which  are  readily 
observed  but  described  with  difficulty,  are  com- 
mon traits  which  are  fatal  to  beauty.  In  fact  I 
do  not  hesitate  to  say  that,  assuming  the  confor- 
mation of  the  features,  and  the  complexion,  to  be 
not  actually  objectionable  (that  is,  assuming  the 
bare  negative  conditions),  beauty,  in  so  far  as 
it  is  facial,  depends  on  the  proper  tonicity  of  the 
muscles. 

The  activity  of  the  facial  muscles  expresses  the 
mental  and  still  more  the  emotional  activity  of  the 
individual  in  a  plain  way.    Vivacity  and  dullness. 


Racial  Betterment  45 

cheerfulness  and  gloom,  benevolence  and  rancor, 
interest  and  ennui,  and  a  multitude  of  other  con- 
ditions are  written  in  the  facial  movements  for 
the  runner  to  read.  Boldness,  modesty,  candor, 
deceit,  innocence,  guilt,  and  other  moral  qualities 
may  be  expressed  in  the  contractions  of  the  mus- 
cles surrounding  the  eyes.  But  in  repose,  these 
muscles  are  expressive  in  another,  and  perhaps 
more  important  way,  for  they  show  the  poten- 
tialities of  the  individual;  what  he  is  capable  of, 
in  so  far  as  the  capability  depends  on  the  func- 
tioning of  the  nervous  system  and  the  endocrine 
glands.  A  person  may  be  attractive,  while  the 
face  is  in  action,  because  the  action  indicates  a 
desirable  type  of  mental  or  moral  activit}^  going 
on;  but  she  is  not  to  be  judged  beautiful  in  face, 
unless  the  face  in  repose  expresses  desirable  po- 
tentialities. A  common  form  of  expression  is  *  *  she 
is  beautiful  only  when  she  smiles : "  a  better  state- 
ment would  be  ' '  she  is  attractive  when  she  smiles, 
but  she  is  not  beautiful." 

8.  Poise.  The  consideration  of  the  expression 
of  mental  and  emotional  qualifications  leads  us 
over  into  the  general  problem  of  the  participation 
of  mental  traits  in  personal  beauty.  There  is  no 
doubt  of  the  value,  to  the  race  as  well  as  to  the 
individual,  of  a  high  degree  of  mental  develop- 
ment, provided  always  that  the  development  does 
not  so  destroy  the  physical  balance  that  the  in- 


46  Personal  Beauty 

dividual 's  chance  of  survival  is  impaired.  Devel- 
opment in  some  individuals,  by  special  environ- 
ment and  training,  of  mental  capacity  beyond  the 
point  of  balance,  is  doubtless  of  value  to  the  so- 
cial group  of  which  they  are  members,  but  the 
increase  in  stock  which  tends  to  general  over- 
mentalization  is  a  dangerous  factor. 

The  underdevelopment  of  mental  capacity,  even 
at  levels  far  above  feeble-mindedness  and  other 
obvious  mental  defects,  is  a  form  of  inefficiency 
as  positive  as  the  overdevelopment.  We  can  con- 
ceive of  a  world  peopled  by  a  race  of  men  and 
women  of  splendid  physique,  from  which  the  com- 
mon grades  of  undesirables  have  been  eliminated : 
a  world  in  which  each  individual  seems  admirably 
constituted  for  mating  and  creating  children  af- 
ter his  kind.  Great  content  and  happiness,  and 
joy  in  the  appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  their 
mates,  might  obtain  among  this  people.  Nature 
too  would  smile  on  the  race  which  had  so  far  com- 
plied with  her  conditions.  But  if  this  race  could 
attain  no  further  than  eminence  in  the  traits  we 
have  previously  considered,  it  would  be  a  failure. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  nation  on  this  plan  would 
have  a  low  chance  of  survival  in  conflict  and  com- 
petition with  nations  which  had  gone  beyond  it 
into  a  richer  mental  and  spiritual  flower  and 
fruition. 

If  it  were  possible  to  apply  comprehensive  and 


Racial  Betterment  47 

accurate  mental  tests  to  candidates  for  mating, 
and  so  to  select  in  accordance  with  adequate  men- 
tal standards,  racial  betterment  might  be  attained 
along  this  line :  but  we  have  no  criteria  which  are 
capable  of  such  application,  and  cannot  foresee 
the  time  when  they  may  be  available.  The  im- 
portant question,  therefore,  is  whether  there  is  an 
element  in  beauty  itself  which  serves  as  an  index 
of  mental  and  spiritual  potentiality:  or  whether 
our  selection  is  indeed  blind  in  this  respect. 

The  mental  life  of  the  individual:  the  processes 
which  directly  involve  consciousness:  depend,  as 
we  now  know,  on  the  integration  of  the  nervous 
system,  and  not  on  the  specific  activity  of  certain 
cell-groups  in  the  brain.  The  nervous  system  is 
made  up  of  myriads  of  nerve  cells — neurons — , 
each  one  a  distinct  individual.  These  neurons 
form  chains  of  conununication  from  every  sense 
organ  to  every  muscle  and  gland.  Many  of  these 
lines  of  communication  may,  at  certain  moments, 
operate  in  relative  independence  of  one  another. 
The  lines  which  control  the  merely  ''physio- 
logical" processes  usually  possess  a  relative  in- 
dependence. Conscious  reactions,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  reactions  of  a  large  part,  if  not  of  the 
whole  of,  the  organism:  reactions  in  which  the 
''nervous  discharge"  over  a  vast  network  of 
routes,  is  integrated,  or  welded,  for  the  moment 
into   a  single  function   of  the   complex   system. 


48  Personal  Beauty 

This  integration  is  probably  never  perfect,  but 
reaches  a  high  degree  in  the  most  efficient  func- 
tioning. When  the  integration  falls  below  a  some- 
what indefinite  low  level  the  failure  gives  rise  to 
the  sjTuptoms  of  **  functional "  nervous  disease. 

The  individual  who  is  capable  of  a  high  level 
of  integration  under  specific  conditions  and  train- 
ing, is  not  necessarily  able  to  maintain  an  effi- 
cient level  under  the  various  conditions  which 
must  be  faced  in  daily  life.  The  distinguished 
mathematician,  or  lawyer,  or  ''specialist"  of  any 
sort,  may  show,  along  with  his  particular  effi- 
ciency, some  of  the  symptoms  of  mental  disease, 
or  be  inefficient  in  many  circumstances  not  in- 
volved in  the  immediate  practice  of  his  specialty. 
These  individuals,  therefore,  do  not  represent  the 
stock  from  which  the  race  should  be  bred.* 
More  desirable,  is  a  more  generally  integrated 
stock,  to  be  improved  in  its  general  integrative 
ability  as  much  as  possible,  and  from  which  in- 
dividuals of  specific  integrative  type — specialists 
in  the  several  lines  of  mental  effort — may  be  de- 
veloped as  offshoots. 

Sound  integrative  function:  the  foundation  of 
sound  mental  life:  is  practically  recognizable, 
and  is  an  actual  element  in  human  beauty  as  it 
is  estimated  in  civilized  societies.     We  call  the 


'These  conditions  are  practically  satisfied  by  the  failure  of  geniuses 
to  produce  offspring.  Our  Shakespeares,  Newtons,  and  Washingtons  have 
left   few  descendants. 


Racial  Betterment  49 

evidence  of  this  capacity  poise,  and  read  it  in  the 
individual's  activities  all  the  way  from  such  com- 
monplace processes  as  walking  and  talking,  to  the 
most  complicated  reactions  under  social  condi- 
tions. Proper  muscular  tonicity  is  of  course  a 
necessary  condition  for  poise,  although  it  is  but 
part  of  the  total.  In  all  its  details,  however,  poise 
takes  us  over  from  mere  anatomy  to  action. 

Without  poise,  beauty  is  the  beauty  of  the  mar- 
ble statue  and  the  painted  canvas.  In  the  com- 
petition for  mates,  poise  undoubtedly  plays  a  very 
large  and  entirely  worthy  role.  Singularly 
enough,  in  one  of  the  institutions  in  which  poise 
should  always  be  considered  essential :  in  the  stage 
beauty-show:  poise  has  in  some  recent  instances 
been  very  much  neglected,  with  results  which 
strikingly  demonstrate  the  importance  of  this  at- 
tribute.   I  shall  refer  to  this  further  on. 

Although  our  survey  is  far  from  complete,  it 
has  proceeded  far  enough  to  show  us  clearly  in 
what  beauty  consists.  It  is  the  sign  and  the  ex- 
pression of  the  potentiality  of  the  individual;  not 
what  he  has  done  or  is  doing,  but  what  he  is  capa- 
ble of  doing;  not  what  he  is  capable  of  doing  for 
his  own  interests,  but  what  he  is  capable  of  doing 
for  the  species.  Put  in  the  plainest  of  terms,  the 
most  beautiful  woman,  the  handsomest  man,  are 
the  persons  we  would  choose  to  be  coparents  of 


50  Personal  Beauty 

our  children,  if  we  considered  nothing  but  the 
highest  mental  and  physical  welfare  of  these  chil- 
dren. 

The  reasons  for  the  actual  matrimonial  choices 
of  society  are  complex,  beauty  being  only  a  minor 
consideration.  For  the  student  of  social  psychol- 
ogy the  investigation  of  the  other  factors  is  of 
absorbing  interest,  but  here  I  may  say  merely  that 
the  predominance  of  these  factors  is  a  calamity. 
As  a  physiological  psychologist,  I  must  repeat 
what  the  poets  have  sung:  the  glorification  of 
beauty  and  its  exaltation  as  the  primary  ideal, 
which  ought  to  reign  in  human  life.  Of  all  the 
divinities  in  the  Greek  pantheon,  the  most  glo- 
rious are  not  Zeus  and  Hera,  not  Ares  and  his 
Aphrodite  Pandemus,  but  Apollo  and  Aphrodite 
Urania,  the  life-giving  queen  of  heaven. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  I  have  omitted  moral 
qualities  from  the  composition  of  the  beautiful 
individual  and  have  ignored  the  physical  charac- 
ters which  connote  these  qualities.  In  this  I  have 
been  consistent,  and  am  in  perfect  agreement  with 
common  usage.  Beauty  may  be  proud,  cruel,  de- 
ceitful, immoral,  wicked;  and  yet  it  may  still  be 
beauty.  Cleopatra  was  capable  of  almost  any 
crime  you  can  think  of,  and  Thais  was  no  modest 
\dolet;  but  history  tells  us  that  they  were  of  won- 
derful beaut}''.  '' Handsome  is  as  handsome  does" 
is  true  only  in  a  qualified  way. 


Racial  Betterment  51 

How,  then,  can  we  elevate  beauty  to  the  rank 
we  give  it,  since  it  satisfies  our  social  demands 
only  in  part,  and  in  what  many  consider  the  less 
essential  part?  We  must  do  so,  because  it  is  the 
foundation  on  which  truth  and  holiness  are  built. 
Only  the  race  which  is  physically  and  mentally 
fit  can  survive  and  flourish  long  enough  to  de- 
velop and  put  in  practice  moral  ideals.  The  prob- 
lem after  all  is  not  one  of  choice  between  two 
ideals,  but  of  having  such  regard  for  the  primary 
ideal  that  it  may  help  us  to  the  attainment  of 
ultimate  ideals.  In  a  more  specific  and  limited 
way  the  problem  of  right  and  might  exemplifies 
the  guiding  principle,  which  is  therein  not  a  choice 
hettveen  right  and  might,  but  the  bringing  of 
might  into  the  service  of  right. 

So  much  for  the  salient  characters  of  beauty  in 
the  meager  treatment  I  can  give  them  here.  I 
might  now  mention  two  other  points  which  pos- 
sibly will  set  off  more  clearly  the  conception  I 
am  trying  to  express. 

Although  beauty,  in  the  primary  and  funda- 
mental sense  of  the  term,  is  prospective,  we  some- 
times use  the  word  retrospectively,  as  when  we 
speak  of  a  beautiful  old  lady  or  a  handsome  old 
man,  indicating  thereby  a  person  who  evidences 
the  past  possession  of  characters  valuable  to  the 
race.  In  a  certain  sense,  the  retrospective  charac- 
ters of  beauty  are  the  same  as  those  which  con- 


52  Personal  Beauty 

stitute  beauty  proper;  but  nevertheless  there  is  a 
tendency  to  admit,  or  rather  demand,  especially 
of  women,  moral  characters  not  demanded  in  the 
case  of  primary  beauty.  While  the  handsome  old 
man  is,  rather  strictly,  the  man  who  still  retains 
in  some  degree  the  marks  of  positive  beauty  (the 
marks  having  a  retrospective  significance),  the 
beautiful  old  woman  is  she  who,  retaining  the 
retrospective  characters,  also  gives  evidence  of 
graces  and  temperamental  qualities  which  are  pos- 
sibly more  the  result  of  environment  than  of  con- 
stitution, and  which  in  the  younger  woman  are 
set  off  from  beauty  as  '^sweetness." 

This  admission  of  retrospective  personal  values 
is  one  feature  of  the  consideration  which  civiliza- 
tion has  given  to  the  aged,  i.  e.,  to  the  individual 
no  longer  potential  for  the  race.  This  considera- 
tion, perhaps,  has  not  increased  since  patriarchal 
times,  but  it  is  an  advance  over  the  attitude  of  still 
more  primitive  races  amongst  whom  the  individ- 
ual who  is  no  longer  useful  as  a  warrior  or  a  parent 
is  ignored  or  eliminated. 

Finally,  I  must  refer  to  the  popular  distinction 
between  prettiness  and  beauty ;  a  distinction  which 
at  least  as  it  applies  to  women  rests  on  solid  psy- 
chobiological  grounds,  and  which  offers  abundant 
opportunity  for  psychological  research,  having 
practical  application  to  some  of  the  pressing  social 
problems. 


Racial  Betterment  53 

The  pretty  woman  is  she  who  possesses  certain 
of  the  characters  of  beauty,  but  in  such  combina- 
tion tliat  they  are  not  an  indication  of  the  general 
potentiality  requisite  for  beauty.  The  characters 
of  prettiness  are  the  characters  of  beauty  which 
promise  least  for  the  stamina  of  the  race.  With- 
out extensive  analysis  of  these  signs  the  distinc- 
tion may  be  summed  up  by  saying  that  a  pretty 
woman  might  be  the  man's  choice  for  a  mate,  but 
not,  other  considerations  being  subordinated,  for 
the  mother  of  his  children. 

There  is  doubtless  a  valid  distinction  in  types 
of  men,  corresponding  to  the  distinction  between 
*' beautiful"  and  ''pretty"  women,  but  it  is  prac- 
tically unimportant  because  of  the  singleness  of 
woman's  judgment.  Men,  however,  are  as  a  sex 
strongly  interested  in  pretty  women  as  well  as  in 
beautiful  ones. 

On  this  point,  certain  observations  on  theatrical 
performances,  especially  musical  comedies,  are  il- 
luminating. Details  are  too  lengthy  to  introduce 
here;  but  in  brief,  the  types  represented  by  th 
show  girl  and  the  dancers  are  necessary  to  give 
the  chorus  (the  foundation  of  the  show)  the  widest 
appeal  to  the  males.  This  is  a  fact  of  practical  im- 
portance to  producers,  and  I  have  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  obtaining  abundant  introspective  confir- 
mation from  men  of  all  classes.  Some  men  are 
interested  almost  exclusively  in  the  type  of  show 


54  Personal  Beauty 

girls  Avho  evidently  would  be  splendid  mothers; 
others  are  primarily  interested  in  the  types  who 
are  attractive  in  a  more  immediately  sexnal  way. 
The  great  majority  of  men,  however,  are  strongly 
interested  in  both  types,  and  have  little  difficulty 
in  identifying  the  grounds  of  the  two  interests. 
The  stage,  I  may  remark,  is  to  social  psychology 
what  the  laboratory  is  to  individual  psychology, 
furnishing  the  possibility  of  experimental  tests, 
especially  in  the  domain  of  the  problems  of  the 
family,  to  which  the  tojDic  of  this  paper  properly 
pertains. 

I  have  sketched,  in  the  preceding  discussion,  the 
line  of  observation  and  reasoning  which  supports 
my  opening  statement  that  beauty  is  something 
vitally  important  for  the  human  race.  It  is  un- 
necessary that  I  should  fill  in  this  outline  with 
more  detail,  because,  having  once  become  im- 
pressed with  the  scheme,  whether  favorably  or 
adversely,  the  details  will  be  filled  in  from  your 
daily  experience,  and  will  in  the  end  leave  no 
doubts  as  to  the  truth  of  the  matter.  It  is  there- 
fore the  business  of  the  social  psychologist  to  lead 
the  way  from  this  point  to  the  next,  and  practical 
one,  the  conservation  of  beauty. 


PART  II 

THE  CONSERVATION  OF  BEAUTY 

HTiman  beauty,  we  have  pointed  out,  is  a  sign 
of  fitness  for  parenthood:  fitness  to  propagate 
children  who  shall  be,  in  high  degree,  able  to  hold 
their  own  in  the  mental  and  physical  struggle  with 
nature  and  Avitli  their  human  competitors.  It  is 
the  sign  which  is  intuitively  recognized  by  the 
race  and  upon  which  the  process  of  sexual  selec- 
tion is  based.  It  therefore  is  nothing  superficial: 
it  is  the  external  appearance  of  the  germinal  po- 
tentiality which  is  the  most  important  of  all 
things  for  society. 

When  we  say  that  this  sign  is  intuitively  recog- 
nized, we  do  not  mean  that  it  has  any  mystic  prop- 
erties :  we  mean  that  it  is  a  sign  which  is  accepted 
and  acted  upon,  without  induction  or  inference,  or 
reasoned  process :  recognized  in  the  visual  details 
of  form  and  coloration  and  graceful  movement, 
in  the  audible  details  of  voice,  and  the  tactually 
felt  smoothness  of  skin  and  firmness  of  muscle  and 
glossiness  of  hair.  Concerning  the  processes  of 
development  through  which  this  recognition  may 
have  passed,  and  the  conjectural  mechanism 
through  which  it  has  come  about,  we  need  not 

55 


56  Personal  Beauty 

speculate.  That  it  is  a  fact,  is  the  point  upon 
which  our  emphasis  should  be  placed. 

In  the  absence  of  more  scientific  tests  of  the  ra- 
cial potentiality  of  the  individual,  beauty  must  be 
used  as  our  guide — beauty  as  we  have  described 
it  in  the  preceding  chapter.  And,  since  the  better- 
ment of  the  race  should  be  evidenced  by  an  in- 
crease in  that  which  is  the  sign  of  desirable  quali- 
ties, the  problem  of  racial  betterment  is  the  prob- 
lem of  conserving  beauty,  and  eliminating  ugli- 
ness, that  beauty  may  more  and  more  predomi- 
nate; and  the  race  become  more  and  more  fit,  in- 
stead of  declining  under  the  influence  of  those 
factors  in  civilization  which  inhibit  sexual  selec- 
tion and  natural  selection. 

At  the  present  time,  we  have  no  right  to  assume 
that  any  strain  of  the  human  race  can  be  im- 
proved. Transmission  of  acquired  characters 
may  be  possible,  but  the  burden  of  proof  is  upon 
those  who  maintain  that  hypothesis.  Neverthe- 
less, we  know  that  improvement  in  mixed  stocks 
can  be  secured  by  the  selection  of  the  more  fit, 
and  the  elimination  of  the  less  fit.  In  stock-breed- 
ing, we  propagate  from  those  individuals  which 
show  in  highest  obtainable  degree  the  qualities  we 
desire,  and  by  so  doing  we  improve  the  breed. 
We  have  reason  to  believe  therefore  that  in  the 
much  mixed  human  races,  by  increasing  the  breed- 
ing of  the  more  beautiful  individuals,  and  decreas- 


Racial  Betterment  57 

ing  the  breeding  of  the  less  fit,  the  level  of  the 
race  may  be  raised,  since  the  better  strains  will 
thus  gain  a  greater  and  greater  predominance 
over  the  weaker.  Even  if  it  be  possible  to  grad- 
ually improve  the  poorer  strains  themselves 
(which  we  have  said  above  is  not  probable),  the 
sure  and  far  more  rapid  method  of  improvement 
is  the  elimination  of  these  weaker  strains,  and  the 
multiplication  of  the  better. 

In  two  ways  the  progress  of  civilization  has  ob- 
structed the  propagation  of  the  fittest,  and  facili- 
tated tlie  multiplication  of  the  unfit.  The  first 
way  is  by  the  development  of  humanitarianism, 
and  the  development  also  of  efficacious  tools  for  its 
use:  surgery,  pharmacology,  and  prophylaxis, 
with  large  funds  and  personnel  to  apply  them.  By 
the  active  influence  of  humanitarianism,  the  less 
resistant,  less  virile,  have  been  given  a  greater  ra- 
tio of  survival,  and  with  the  increase  in  survival 
has  gone  an  increase  in  propagation. 

I  am  not  unappreciative  of  the  benefits  of  hu- 
manitarianism; it  is  the  real  glory  of  civilization, 
and  we  would  be  Huns  if  we  did  not  realize  it.  It 
is  true  that  many  of  the  individuals  whom  science 
and  philanthropy  snatch  from  untimely  ends,  al- 
though individually  weaklings,  are  weaklings  by 
economic  accident  and  germ  infection,  but  really 
belong  to  desirable  stocks  and  are  capable  of 
propagating  desirable  progeny.    Moreover,  the  es- 


58  Personal  Beauty 

sence  of  civilization  is  the  fact  that  it  places  a 
value  on  the  individual  where  nature  places  value 
only  on  the  species.  The  true  type  of  natural  val- 
uation is  illustrated  by  the  bees,  the  male  of  which 
dies  in  the  act  of  copulation,  the  female  is  dis- 
carded as  soon  as  she  ceases  to  produce  eggs  co- 
piously, and  the  neuters  are  mere  machines  to  care 
for  the  eggs  and  feed  the  queen  and  larvse.  That 
this  sort  of  social  organization  is  not  good  for 
man,  however  well  it  suits  the  bees,  the  Germans 
have  impressively  demonstrated.  Although  civil- 
ization evaluates  individuals  as  such,  regardless 
of  the  sort  of  offspring  they  produce,  it  dares  not 
nullify  the  laws  of  nature  beyond  a  certain  limit, 
or  it  would  commit  suicide.  The  obvious  compro- 
mise is  to  preserve  the  individual,  whether  virile 
or  weakling,  but  to  prevent  the  weakling  from  re- 
producing. Thus  both  humanitarianism  and  ra- 
cial needs  are  served. 

Perhaps  there  are  limits  beyond  which  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  individual  is  undesirable.  It  seems 
not  only  useless  but  dangerous  to  preserve  the  in- 
curably insane  and  the  lower  grades  of  feeble- 
minded, even  when  we  consider  the  case  from  the 
individualistic  point  of  view.  When  we  estimate 
what  the  personal  labor  put  into  asylums  and  into 
institutions  for  feeble-minded,  might  accomplish 
if  expended  in  the  poorer  districts  of  our  cities 
in  teaching  the  children  who  will  be  the  parents 


Racial  Betterment  59 

of  a  large  fraction  of  the  next  generation  of  citi- 
zens, how  to  work  and  play,  it  seems  a  pity  that 
we  cannot  asphyxiate  the  hopelessly  insane  and 
feeble-minded  as  kindly  as  we  do  stray  dogs  and 
cats.  Such  a  course  of  procedure,  however,  is  im- 
practicable, for  the  reasons  assigned  below 
against  legalized  sterilization. 

The  second  way  in  Avhich  civilization  interferes 
with  the  conservation  of  the  desirable  human 
qualities,  is  in  setting  sexual  values  which  con- 
flict with  those  of  beauty,  and  which  obscure  or 
override  them. 

The  natural  desire  for  children  is  inhibited  by 
other  desires  of  various  sorts:  desires  which  in 
many  cases  are  good  in  themselves,  but  which  are 
so  puffed  up  by  civilization  that  many  couples 
who  are  personally  qualified,  legally  authorized, 
and  economically  able,  to  create  children,  produce 
none  or  too  few.  On  account  of  these  social  values 
which  civilization  creates,  many  who  are  excel- 
lently qualified  for  parenthood  do  not  even  marry. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  social  values  which  are 
purchasable  by  wealth  and  which  again,  are  in 
many  cases  commendable,  often  obscure  perscTual 
undesirability;  and  men  and  women  who,  in  a 
more  natural  order  of  things  would  not  be  counted 
beautiful,  nor  considered  desirable  coparents,  are 
sought  after  and  married.  Fortunately,  it  fre- 
quently happens  that  the  inhibitory  process  we 


60  Personal  Beauty 

have  just  mentioned;  the  checking  of  the  desire 
for  children  by  conflicting  social  values;  enters 
into  a  great  many  of  these  mammonistic  marriages 
and  tends  to  neutralize  their  evil  results.  The 
harm  of  mismating  is  not  completely  destroyed  by 
childlessness,  however,  for  although  the  positive 
damage — the  procreation  by  the  unfit  parent — 
may  thus  be  prevented,  the  loss  due  to  the  nonpro- 
creation  by  the  fit  mate  in  such  a  union  is  not 
made  up. 

Features  of  civilization  which  are  in  themselves 
good  may,  as  indicated  above,  work  serious  harm 
in  society  which  has  not  yet  completely  adjusted 
itself  to  these  features.  Certain  benefits,  on  the 
other  hand  may  accrue  to  society  from  features 
which  are  in  themselves  malignant,  even  though 
the  evil  wrought  by  these  features  is  enormously 
in  excess  of  the  incidental  benefits.  Prostitution 
is  one  of  these  sinister  features,  which,  it  is  proba- 
ble, has  conferred  slight  benefits  on  society,  and 
has  also  contributed  to  social  modifications  wiiose 
value  is  open  to  serious  question. 

Prostitution  is  a  social  institution  developed 
with  civilization  as  a  result  of  social  maladjust- 
ment: maladjustment  of  the  various  other  institu- 
tions which  develop  by  irregular  growth.  Al- 
though no  longer  accepted  as  a  necessity,  it  re- 
sists all  attempts  to  eliminate  it  based  on  the  as- 
sumption that  it  is  a  primary  institution,  instead 


Racial  Betterment  61 

of  what  it  really  is:  namely,  a  derivative.  Like 
all  symptoms,  it  is  to  be  treated  as  a  symptom, 
and  removed  by  removing  the  causes.  Neither 
homeopathic  nor  allopathic  measures  have  had 
permanent  remedial  effect  upon  it.  Yet,  like  all 
symptomatic  phenomena,  it  has  direct  conse- 
quences, flowing  from  it  rather  than  from  its 
causes,  and  these  consequences  are  probably  both 
good  and  evil. 

Prostitution  has  undoubtedly  had  some  effect, 
and  possibly  a  large  effect,  in  checking  the  in- 
crease, if  not  in  producing  the  decrease,  of  cer- 
tain individual  qualities  which  are  deemed  un- 
desirable, either  from  the  personal  or  the  social 
point  of  view. 

In  its  commonest  form,  prostitution  is  a  means 
of  limiting  the  sexual  freedom  of  women,  while 
extending  the  largest  freedom  to  men  compatible 
with  such  restriction  upon  the  female.  It  pro- 
vides, in  other  words,  the  greatest  possible  sexual 
liberty  for  male  and  the  greatest  possible  limita- 
tion for  women,  which  can  coexist.  A  major  dis- 
tinction is  thus  created  between  the  two  classes 
of  harlots  and  ' '  virtuous  women, ' '  into  which  two 
classes  all  women  are  distributed  if  the  system  is 
perfectly  carried  out.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  most 
social  groups  under  the  successive  stages  of  civili- 
zation, there  has  been  a  ''borderline"  class,  never 


62  Personal  Beauty 

large,  but  rapidly  increasing  in  size  at  the  present 
time. 

The  typical  rule  of  prostitution,  although  ab- 
sent from  some  civilizations,  is  that  the  woman 
who  ''sins"  once,  if  found  out,  becomes  per- 
manently a  prostitute.  Exceptions  are  made,  in 
later  forms  of  civilization,  in  favor  of  women  be- 
longing to  certain  small  classes,  but  these  excep- 
tions are  not  of  sufficient  importance  to  alter  the 
general  conditions.  Prostitutes  are  in  general 
childless,  except  for  the  single  ''love  child"  which 
is  in  many  cases  the  instrument  through  which 
the  woman's  "sin"  is  discovered,  and  through 
which,  therefore,  she  is  committed  to  harlotry.  In 
total,  the  progeny  of  harlots  are  of  small  conse- 
quence. 

Prostitution  furnishes  therefore  a  sink,  into 
which  certain  lines  of  human  descent  are  con- 
stantly vanishing.  The  types  of  woman  absorbed 
in  this  sink  include  two  of  probable  importance 
as  regards  their  effect  on  the  stock.  These  are, 
first:  the  feeble-minded,  who,  according  to  cur- 
rent statistics,  are  found  in  significant  frequency 
among  harlots  and  "delinquent"  women;*  and 
second,  those  women  who  are  more  like  the  male 
in  the  temporal  course  of  sexual  desire  than  is  the 


*Caution  in  evaluating  these  statistics  is  necessary.  They  are  of  course 
drawn  from  the  relatively  small  class  of  "delinquents"  who  are  caught; 
and  of  course  the  woman  of  lower  intelligence  is  more  apt  to  be  caught 
than  is  the  more  intelligent  "delinquent."  To  a  lesser  degree,  the  same 
consideration  applies  to  the  statistics  on  relative  frequency  of  nymphomania. 


Racial  Betterment  63 

average  woman,  and  are  hence  more  apt  to  ac- 
tively seek  intercourse,  or  more  apt  to  yield  to  the 
illicit  solicitations  of  the  male.  The  occurrence 
among  prostitutes  of  a  certain  proportion  of 
nymphomaniacs  is  not  surprising. 

The  age-long  drafting  into  the  ranks  of  harlots 
of  the  more  ardent  women  should  theoretically 
give  a  slight  advantage  in  reproduction  to  the 
''colder"  types,  and  could  thus  have  produced  a 
modification  in  the  average  constitution  of 
woman;  which  seems  indeed  to  have  occurred. 
"While  among  savages,  according  to  many  ac- 
counts, women  are  more  lustful,  if  anything,  than 
men;  among  modern  civilized  peoples  the  rule 
is  that  aside  from  coquetry,  woman  yields  rather 
than  seeks.  Her  sexual  desires  are  a  flame  which 
must  be  lighted  from  an  external  source,  whereas 
the  male's  are  self -igniting.  Man's  desire  is  al- 
ways explicit,  but  woman's  are  usually  implicit, 
becoming  explicit  only  under  the  favorable  stimu- 
lating influence — ^mental  and  physical — of  the 
male.  The  manifestation  of  the  implicit  desire  in 
extreme  cases  is  coquetry,  which  is  only  an  ex- 
aggeration of  the  normal  tendency  to  encourage 
the  male,  that  is,  to  submit  herself  to  the  stimu- 
lation, mental  at  first,  which  will  eventually  arouse 
her  explicit  desire.  The  beautiful  reciprocity  of 
the  sexes  herein  exhibited  must  command  our  ad- 


64  Personal  Beauty 

miration  by  its  efficiency  in  promoting  Dame  Na- 
ture's aims. 

Prostitution  has  no  such  selective  effect  on  the 
males  as  it  has  on  the  females.  It  may  have  a 
slight  effect  in  delaying,  or  in  exceptional  cases 
obviating,  marriage.  But  whereas  prostitutes 
never  constitute  more  than  a  small  percentage  of 
the  female  population,  their  patrons  constitute  an 
important  percentage  of  the  male  population:  es- 
timates (admittedly  unreliable)  running  as  high 
as  ninety  per  cent  in  America,  and  higher  in  Eu- 
rope. Nor  can  it  be  said  there  is  any  less  ultimate 
fecundicity  among  the  more  frequent  male  forni- 
cators than  among  the  less  frequent,  or  among  the 
minority  who  take  monogamy  seriously.  Other 
vices,  however,  homosexuality  in  particular,  do 
lessen  reproduction  by  males  of  weak  strains,* 
although  having  no  probable  effect  on  female  re- 
production. 

The  presumptive  effect  of  prostitution  on  the 
average  emotional  constitution  of  woman  can  as 
reasonably  be  assumed  to  be  a  loss  as  a  gain.  If 
we  could  free  ourselves  from  the  still  prevalent 
view  of  woman  as  property;  if  marriage  could 


*Against  the  Freudian  supposition  that  homosexuality  is  a  normal  in- 
cident of  the  development  of  the  individual,  I  wish  to  set  the  conjecture, 
at  least  as  plausible,  that  it  is  the  mark  of  an  hereditary  taint,  where  it 
is  not  produced  by  extremely  pathological  social  conditions,  and  that  even 
in  these  latter  cases,  it  develops  under  the  guidance  of  an  influential 
tainted  stock.  Although  homosexuality  is  frequent  among  women,  that 
it  acts  as  a  preventive  of  marriage  and  child  bearing  in  more  than  an 
inconsiderable   number   of   cases   does    not   seem   probable. 


Racial  Betterment  65 

be  put  on  a  plan  of  equality ;  there  would  undoubt- 
edly be  a  consensus  of  opinion  that  society  loses 
by  a  repression  of  the  emotional  life  of  females. 
Hence,  the  only  benefit  we  can  assume  from  pros- 
titution is  the  reduction  of  reproduction  by  the 
feeble-minded.  And  this,  in  contrast  with  the 
serious  racial  effects  of  venereal  disease  which 
prostitution  facilitates:  with  the  even  more  se- 
rious evil  of  unmated  women  which  prostitution 
augments:  and  with  the  psychological  effects  on 
the  men  who  resort  to  prostitutes — effects  which 
have  not  been  given  due  consideration  as  yet — is 
a  contribution  so  small  that  it  is  not  worth  con- 
sideration. 

Pkactical  Steps  in  Conservation 

Any  consideration  of  the  propagation  of  the 
most  beautiful  types  involves  a  consideration  of 
the  standard  of  beauty;  and  as  I  have  pointed  out, 
there  is  a  diversity  in  this  respect,  not  only  na- 
tionally, but  to  a  lesser  degree  even  within  a  sin- 
gle civilized  nation.  This  diversity,  however,  is 
not  a  serious  impediment,  since  any  practical 
steps  which  might  be  taken  would  be  based,  not 
upon  a  narrow  type-classification,  but  rather  on 
a  broad  grouping  of  types  including  all  divergen- 
cies which  do  not  involve  disregard  of  the  fun- 
damental principles  of  fitness. 

In  effect,  we  are  considering,  at  the  most,  not 


66  Personal  Beauty 

the  extreme  selection  as  carried  out  in  stock- 
breeding,  where  a  definite,  narrowly  defined  char- 
acter (such  as  speed,  milk  secretion,  or  color)  is 
desired,  even  at  the  expense  of  other  characters ; 
but  the  elimination  of  the  obviously  unfit,  and  the 
promotion  of  the  breeding  of  a  wide  range  of 
more  fit  types.  In  so  far  as  positive  selection,  as 
contrasted  with  elimination,  is  concerned,  this  can 
safely  be  accomplished  by  facilitating  and  fructi- 
fying the  natural  process  of  sexual  selection  rather 
than  by  arbitrary  regulation. 

In  considering  elimination,  two  questions  are 
equally  important:  first,  what  classes  of  individ- 
uals should  theoretically  be  eliminated?  and 
second,  what  machinery  of  elimination  is  possi- 
ble, and  how  far  is  it  safe  to  allow  this  machinery 
to  operate? 

If  we  do  not  allow  the  second  question  to  dis- 
turb us,  the  first  question  may  readily  receive  a 
partial  answer.  Feeble-mindedness,  hereditary 
insanity,  and  hereditary  criminal  tendencies  (if 
such  occur)  should  be  nipped  in  all  the  buds  they 
show.  Individuals  showing  these  traits  definitely 
should  not  be  allowed  to  reproduce.  Diseases  and 
organic  weaknesses  which  are  transmissible  to  off- 
spring (if  there  be  such  diseases)  should  come  un- 
der the  same  rigid  ban.  Although  additions  would 
need  to  be  made  to  this  list,  the  program  indicated 


Racial  Betterment  67 

so  far  is  so  large  that  these  additions  might  well 
be  left  to  the  indefinite  future. 

The  actual  adoption  of  measures  for  the  elim- 
ination of  the  obviously  unfit  from  participation 
in  reproduction,  offers  at  the  present  time  diffi- 
culties which  seem  insuperable.  Sterilization  is 
the  abstractly  logical  course  to  pursue,  since  it  in- 
terferes with  no  function  of  the  individual  except 
the  creation  of  children.  But  in  addition  to  the 
psychological  difficulties  involved  in  social  prej- 
udices against  this  operation,  there  is  a  very  real 
danger  to  be  foreseen  which  can  not  be  lightly 
set  aside.  If  we  could  assume  that  the  requisite 
machinery  for  the  selection  of  those  who  should 
be  sterilized  would  operate  with  perfect  intelli- 
gence and  without  ethical  lapses,  we  might  view 
its  introduction  with  equanimity.  But  such  large 
chances  are  offered  for  ignorance  and  cupidity  to 
work  injustice  that  the  scheme  cannot  possibly 
be  accepted  at  the  present  time,  whatever  may  be 
the  conditions  in  some  distant  future.* 

If  sterilization  were  legally  instituted  at  the 
present  time,  its  practical  administration  would  in 
all  probability  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  med- 
dieal  profession  as  such  (and  the  ''as  such"  is 
here  a  very  important  consideration).  The  medi- 
cal profession,  in  the  United  States  at  least,  is  a 

*Legal  provision  for  sterilization  has  been  made  in  several  states  in 
the  Union.  Apparently,  the  provision  has  not  been  follovifed  in  practice 
to   any   considerable    extent. 


G8  Personal  Beauty 

very  strongly  organized  guild,  having  the  essen- 
tial characteristics  of  the  labor  unions.  It  in- 
cludes a  large  number  of  the  most  intelligent, 
scientific  and  morally  estimable  men  in  the  na- 
tion; but  its  rank  and  file  are  properly  ranked  as 
skillful  technicians  and  not  above  the  middle-class 
average  in  intelligence  and  morality.  The  com- 
mission to  such  an  organization  of  such  sweeping 
control  as  is  contemplated  by  the  proponents  of 
sterilization  would  be  a  political  revolution  of  a 
most  portentous  nature.  The  assigning  of  com- 
plex problems  involving  medical  and  other  factors, 
to  the  control  of  the  medical  profession  as  such, 
does,  and  under  conditions  such  as  the  present, 
will,  not  only  endanger  the  solution  of  these  very 
problems,  but  also  introduce  dangerous  political 
situations.  A  similar  statement  could  equally 
well  be  made  of  any  other  organized  trade  or  pro- 
fession. If  the  time  ever  comes  when  the  control 
of  sterilization  could  be  committed  to  a  nonpro- 
fessional body,  employing  the  services  of  men  of 
whatever  professional  skill  may  be  needed,  the 
possibility  of  systematic  legal  sterilization  may 
become  a  live  one.  At  present,  it  must  be  emphat- 
ically rejected. 

Progress  is  possible  towards  the  elimination  of 
the  unfit  through  the  means  which  have  most  con- 
tributed to  all  progress,  namely,  education  and 
publicity.    The  elimination  under  consideration  is 


Racial  Betterment       _  69 

an  ideal,  which  must  be  kept  constantly  in  view, 
in  order  that  all  social  changes,  legislative  and 
otherwise,  may  receive  consideration,  as  regards 
their  influence,  direct  or  indirect,  upon  the  facili- 
tation of  progress  towards  it. 

Aside  from  the  elimination  of  individuals  of 
undesirable  heredity,  there  are  measures  of  a 
quasi-eliminatory  character  which  may  be  taken 
to  guard  against  deterioration  of  stocks.  In  ad- 
dition to  rational  hygienic  measures  against  the 
spread  of  diseases  in  general,  special  precautions 
are  needed  against  venereal  diseases,  since  these 
most  seriously  threaten  the  virility  of  the  race. 
With  these  diseases,  sterilization  would  not  be  a 
sufficient  protection,  inasmuch  as  that  operation 
does  not  preclude  their  transmission  to  nonsteri- 
lized  individuals.  It  is  imperative  that  there  be 
absolute  prevention  of  intercourse  between  in- 
fected and  noninfected  persons;  and  this  preven- 
tion is  a  task  of  gigantic  proportions.  Its  accom- 
plishment would  probably  necessitate  the  impris- 
onment (or  the  equivalent)  of  every  individual 
case  of  gonorrhea  and  syphilis.  If  recent  conclu- 
sions that  leprosy  is  also  a  venereal  disease,  trans- 
missible during  a  long  period  before  it  becomes 
recognizable,  are  correct,  the  handling  of  this  dis- 
ease, in  countries  where  it  flourishes,  presents 
especial  difficulties,  since  the  attempt  to  stamp  it 
out  would  involve  the  enforcement  of  more  drastic 


70  Personal  Beauty 

prohibitions  against  promiscuity  than  have  ever 
been  attempted. 

In  these  cases  again,  education  and  publicity- 
seem  to  be  the  chief  available  weapons  at  present. 
Minor  legislation,  such  as  severe  punishment  of 
individuals  who  can  be  shown  to  have  infected 
others,  and  of  S3^philitic  individuals  who  become 
parents,  are  worthy  of  consideration,  but  economic 
and  general  social  influences  bearing  on  the  situa- 
tion should  not  be  neglected. 

If,  by  concerted  efforts  of  the  governments  of 
the  world,  venereal  diseases  could  be  finally 
stamped  out,  no  events  in  the  Christian  era  would 
be  worthy  to  rank  with  this  accomplishment  ex- 
cept the  defeat  of  the  Mohammedans  by  Charles 
Martel  and  the  defeat  of  the  followers  of  the 
"good  old  German  god"  by  Foch. 

Incest  and  Inbkeeding 

In  all  stages  of  society  there  have  been  devel- 
oped restrictions  on  mating  which  are  conveni- 
ently described  as  incest-prohibitions.  The  wide 
variations  in  the  tabus  or  conventions  of  this  sort 
have  given  rise  to  much  discussion  among  anthro- 
pologists and  sociologists,  but  the  universal  prin- 
ciple on  which  these  tabus  are  based  is  now  quite 
clear.  Whether  the  prohibition  is  against  the  mat- 
ing of  blood-relations  of  certain  degrees,  or  against 
mating  of  persons  socially  related  through  com- 


Racial  Betterment  71 

mon  name,  or  totem,  or  tribal  subdivision,  it  is  al- 
ways of  such  a  nature  as  to  prevent  the  conjuga- 
tion of  persons  who  are  reared  in  close  association 
or  intimacy;  causing  the  individual  to  look  for  a 
sex-mate  beyond  the  limits  of  his  immediate  '  *  fam- 
ily." In  many  cases,  the  prohibition  is  retained 
long  after  the  ''family"  life  is  so  changed  that 
the  original  reason  has  ceased  to  exist;  as  for  ex- 
ample, is  the  case  with  the  prohibition  of  the  mar- 
riage of  first  cousins,  who  in  many  communities 
are  no  longer  apt  to  be  reared  in  greater  intimacy 
than  are  children  not  blood-related  at  all.  This 
persistence  of  conventions  no  longer  useful  is  so 
common  in  society  generally  as  to  raise  no  special 
difficulties  in  understanding  the  incest  prohibi- 
tions. In  origin,  these  prohibitions  are,  without 
exception,  conventions  against  the  sex-mating  of 
what  may  be  designated  as  "house-mates." 

The  importance  of  incest-conventions  needs  no 
argumentative  support.  The  sex-impulse,  in  spite 
of  its  strength,  is  easily  directed  by  conventions: 
the  assumption  that  such  and  such  persons  are  not 
possible  sex-mates,  if  inculcated  early  enough,  is 
a  very  efficient  preventive  of  sex-interest  in  those 
persons.  Without  such  conventions,  the  probabil- 
itj^  of  the  too  early  maturation  and  excessive  de- 
velopment of  the  sex-instinct  is  very  great.  In- 
cest-prohibitions must  therefore  be  religiously,  if 


72  Personal  Beauty 

not  blindly,  preserved,  if  the  future  of  the  race  is 
to  be  guarded. 

Inbreeding,  which  is  frequently  confused  with 
incest,  is  a  radically  different  matter,  although 
in  particular  cases  the  two  conditions  may  over- 
lap. The  union  of  cousins  is  inbreeding,  and 
may  be  incest,  but  the  reasons  for  prohibiting 
it  as  incest  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  bio- 
logical results  of  the  inbreeding.  The  pop- 
ular notion  that  the  incest-convention  has  grown 
up  as  a  result  of  observation  of  the  evil  effects  of 
inbreeding,  or  through  an  '* unconscious"  knowl- 
edge of  such  evil  effects  is  entirely  fallacious.  The 
justification,  moreover,  of  an  outworn  incest-con- 
vention of  this  sort,  through  an  appeal  to  the  sup- 
posed evil  effects  of  inbreeding,  is  without  proper 
foundation. 

It  is  now  well  known  that  inbreeding  has  in  it- 
self no  evil  effects.  Stocks  do  not  deteriorate 
through  consanguineous  marriages,  but  strong 
points  as  well  as  points  of  weakness  are  accen- 
tuated. Feeble-mindedness  furnishes  a  good  illus- 
tration of  the  results  of  breeding.  Some  of  the 
progeny  of  the  union  of  a  sound  and  a  feeble- 
minded parent,  will  be  sound:  but  they  carry  in 
their  germ-cells  the  ''determinant"  of  feeble- 
mindedness, and  transmit  it  to  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  their  o\^^l  progeny.  If  two  persons,  both  of 
whom  carry  this  determinant,  mate,  the  charac- 


Racial  Betterment  73 

teristic  will  reappear  in  certain  of  their  progeny 
(that  is,  some  of  their  children  will  be  feeble- 
minded) although  the  characteristic  may  have 
been  latent  for  several  generations.  Obviously, 
parents  who  both  come  from  feeble-minded  stock 
are  more  apt  to  possess  this  determinant  than  par- 
ents of  diverse  stock:  hence  we  see  the  feeble- 
mindedness reappearing  strikingly  in  certain  cases 
of  consanguineous  marriages.  The  situation  w^ith 
regard  to  other  weaknesses  is  similar.  Marriage 
of  cousins  produces  a  significant  number  of  dea;f, 
or  color-blind,  or  otherwise  defective  children  be- 
cause these  defects  were  latent  in  the  stock  and  are 
brought  otit  by  being  transmitted  through  both 
parents.  If  the  parents  in  such  a  case  had  each 
married  persons  not  carrying  the  ''determinant" 
of  the  defect  in  question,  the  defect  might  not 
have  appeared,  but  (and  this  is  the  consideration 
which  must  not  be  forgotten),  the  determinant 
would  have  been  transmitted  to  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  their  progeny,  to  reappear  or  produce  the 
defect,  in  later  generations  when  the  conditions 
were  favorable. 

With  regard  to  points  of  strength,  the  situation 
is  the  same  as  with  points  of  weakness.  High 
intelligence  and  longevity  are  actualized  in  the 
progeny  of  parents  who  both  possess  the  deter- 
minant, whereas  the  determinant  is  in  a  large  pro- 


74  Personal  Beauty 

portion  of  cases  merely  carried  over  to  later  gen- 
erations if  only  one  parent  possesses  it. 

Instead  of  inbreeding  being  a  racial  evil,  it  may 
be  a  distinctly  valuable  means  of  progress. 
Strong  strains  are  thereby  conserved,  and  weak- 
nesses in  other  strains  are  brought  to  the  surface, 
so  that  they  may  be  recognized  and  eliminated. 
This  consideration  applies  not  only  to  inbreeding, 
but  the  general  mating  of  like  with  like,  for  the  re- 
sults of  conjugation  are  the  same  when  two  per- 
sons who  mate  both  possess  the  same  determinant, 
whether  these  persons  are  closely  or  remotely  re- 
lated in  blood.  If  feeble-minded  mate  with  feeble- 
minded; if  those  who  carry  the  determinant  but 
do  not  show  it,  mate  only  mth  those  who  also 
carry  the  determinant,  a  large  proportion  of  fee- 
ble-minded children  will  result  from  these  unions. 
These  children  may  then  be  institutionalized  (if 
not  sterilized)  and  prevented  from  reproducing, 
and  their  heredity  thus  eliminated.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  those  of  feeble-minded  heredity  mate 
largely  with  those  of  better  heredity,  the  deter- 
minant is  passed  on,  to  make  trouble  in  a  larger 
degree  in  future  generations,  when  like  mates  by 
chance  with  like. 

For  the  welfare  of  the  race  therefore,  like 
should  be  encouraged  to  mate  with  like,  especially 
in  so  far  as  weaknesses  are  concerned,  and  in- 
breeding, in  so  far  as  there  is  no  encouragement  of 


Racial  Betterment  75 

incest,  should  have  the  ban  against  it  removed. 
However  unwise  the  removal,  in  England,  of  the 
prohibition  against  marrying  a  deceased  wife's 
sister,  may  have  been — because  she  is  so  frequent- 
ly the  husband's  housemate — there  is  little  rea- 
son, in  America,  in  discouraging  the  marriage  of 
first  cousins.  In  the  cases  of  aunt  and  nephew, 
and  of  uncle  and  niece,  the  incest-relation  is  pos- 
sibly a  distinct  consideration. 

Improvement  in  Sexual  Selection 

In  passing  to  the  consideration  of  improvement 
by  positive  selection  of  the  best  stocks  we  are 
harking  back  nearly  twenty-three  hundred  years, 
from  preventive  medicine  to  eugenics.  Plato,  in 
the  Republic,  outlines  the  first  recorded  plan  for 
breeding  a  nation  through  careful  selection  of  the 
most  beautiful  youths  for  parents,  and  punish- 
ment of  unauthorized  parents.  Plato's  scheme 
probably  would  not  work,  on  account  of  its  ex- 
treme paternalism,  and  its  depersonalization  as 
regards  the  indispensable  feature  of  sexual  union, 
namely,  the  offspring.  It  tends  to  reduce  the  in- 
dividual's interest  in  cohabitation  to  the  purely 
sexual  level.  The  universal  failure  of  institu- 
tional care  of  babies  is  a  sound  warning  against 
allowing  the  sexual  instinct  to  gain  the  ascend- 
ancy over  the  parental. 

Plato  was  not  fundamentally  wrong  in  his  the- 


76  Personal  Beauty 

ory  of  eugenics,  any  more  than  he  was  in  other 
matters.  The  needs,  after  elimination  of  the 
clearly  unfit,  are  two.  First,  to  insure  that  mar- 
riages shall  be  made  on  the  basis  of  mutual  at- 
traction of  beauty  alone,  excluding  all  interference 
of  national,  family,  social,  religious,  or  economic 
motives.  Second,  to  take  care  that  the  unions  of 
the  most  fit  shall  be  fruitful,  and  relatively  more 
fruitful  than  those  of  the  less  fit. 

The  world  at  the  present  time  is  overpopulated. 
Man  has  obeyed  the  injunction  to  '^  multiply  and 
replenish  the  earth, ' '  and  having  succeeded  in  re- 
plenishing the  globe  in  full  and  over  full  measure, 
has  gone  right  on  multiplying.  Even  wars  and 
pestilences  have  not  prevented  the  earth's  popu- 
lation from  becoming  too  numerous.  And  al- 
though pestilences  may  be  mostly  short-circuited 
by  medical  skill,  war  is  inevitable  when  national 
domains  are  so  overcrowded  that  further  increase 
is  possible  only  through  depredation  on,  or  con- 
quest of,  other  peoples.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the 
unnecessary  multiplication  of  the  German  people, 
Germany  would  have  had  no  occasion  to  attempt 
to  conquer  her  neighbors,  and  would  have  had  no 
occasion  therefore  to  develop  the  philosophy  of 
schrecJdichkeit  to  make  her  barbarities  possible. 

The  margin  of  living  at  the  present  time  is  very 
small.  Land  everywhere  is  becoming  impover- 
ished, and  available  new  lands  are  becoming  less. 


Racial  Betterment  77 

Even  now,  grazing  lands  are  rapidly  disappear- 
ing, with  consequent  shortage  of  beef  and  leather. 
Soon  there  will  not  be  an  extent  of  wheat  lands 
sufficient  to  feed  the  world,  and  the  inferior  sub- 
stitutes lately  endured  as  a  duty  will  be  accepted 
as  a  necessity.  When  the  whole  world  resorts  to 
intensive  farming,  with  no  accessory  regions  of 
extensive  cultivation,  and  no  great  wild  areas  for 
game  and  adventure,  life  for  the  majority  of  the 
people  in  our  country  and  all  others  will  take  on 
the  dull  tinge  it  has  in  European  peasant  commu- 
nities. 

To  make  life  profitable,  we  need  vast  forest 
areas,  and  vast  areas  which  can  lie  fallow  to  re- 
cuperate. We  need  space  for  myriads  of  cattle 
and  sheep,  and  for  wild  game.  And  we  need  to 
reduce  our  consumption  of  coal  and  oil  and  wood, 
rather  than  increase  it. 

The  obvious  relief  measure  is  the  decrease  in 
births  among  the  classes  now  unduly  multiplying. 
And  all  that  is  needed  to  bring  this  about  is  a 
dissemination  of  knowledge  concerning  hygienic 
means  of  preventing  conception.  The  classes  from 
which  our  best  parents  are  drawn  already  possess 
some  of  this  information  and  are  already  limit- 
ing— too  much  limiting,  probably, — their  off- 
spring. The  immediate  and  urgent  need  is  to  in- 
struct the  other  classes,  so  that  the  disparity  in 


78  Personal  Beauty 

propagation  shall  immediately  be  lessened,  if  not 
reversed.* 

The  converse  reforms;  the  increasing  of  the  re- 
production of  the  best  specimens  of  the  race;  de- 
pends more  largely  than  might  be  supposed  upon 
the  restriction  of  the  propagation  of  the  unfit. 
With  a  lessened  pressure  of  population,  economic 
and  social  situations  change  radically,  and  the 
very  individuals  who  now  deem  families  undesira- 
ble will  find  the  possession  and  care  of  children 
to  be  the  maximally  desirable  thing  in  life. 
Others,  Avho  cannot  afford  a  family  under  the 
economic  situation  now  prevailing,  will  be  able  to 
maintain  one  without  unduly  relaxing  the  stand- 
ard of  living,  when  the  pressure  on  means  of 
sustenance  becomes  less. 

The  first  step  in  the  betterment  of  selection; 
the  spreading  of  knowledge  of  preventive  meas- 
ures throughout  the  whole  population;  is  the  dif- 
ficult one.  In  addition  to  the  combination  of  ig- 
norance and  class-interest  which  this  reform,  like 
all  others,  has  to  combat,  the  opposition  is  so  sus- 
ceptible of  political  manipulation  that  it  is  almost 
impregnably  intrenched.  It  is  probable  that  not 
even  the  lessons  of  the  German  war  will  have  much 


•Instruction  of  the  negroes  alone,  with  perhaps  some  institutional  as- 
sistance of  a  material  kind,  would  help  greatly  in  the  solution  of  one  of 
the  most  important  of  American  social  problems.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
the  negroes  would  welcome  the  ameliorative  measure;  certainly  the  negro 
women   would. 

Among  the  poorer  white  people,  the  lessening  of  the  present  preva- 
lence of  abortion  would  in  itself  be  a  valuable  result. 


Racial  Betterment  79 

influence,  and  until  the  social  and  industrial  crises 
now  bearing  down  upon  us  have  become  actuali- 
ties instead  of  threats  the  public  will  not  wake  up. 

In  addition  to  the  general  economic  check  to  the 
reproduction  of  the  so-called  ''better  classes," 
there  are  positive  psychosociological  checks  which 
operate  selectively  against  the  more  beautiful 
women — precisely  the  women  who  ought  to  be  se- 
lected for  reproduction,  not  against  it. 

The  more  beautiful  a  woman,  other  considera- 
tions being  equal,  the  greater  her  chance  of  mak- 
ing a  relatively  wealthy  match — and  her  beauty 
may  even  overcome  serious  considerations  of  neg- 
ative weight.  The  wealthier  the  match,  under 
present  conditions,  the  less  the  probability  of  her 
bearing  children.  Without  wealth,  social  preten- 
sions may  have  an  even  greater  deterrent  effect, 
for  with  wealth,  social  pretensions  and  children 
are  not  positively  incompatible  whereas  without 
wealth  they  are. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  gloss  over  facts,  nor 
is  it  decent.  Numbers  of  women  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful types  are  bought  for  a  price,  and  that  price 
is  the  assurance  of  being  kept  for  life  in  a  style 
and  indolence  which  preclude  (barring  accidents) 
the  satisfaction  of  the  parental  instinct.  And 
even  when  tired  of  these  mistresses,  their  consorts 
cannot  discard  them  and  take  more  normal  women, 
for  they  (or  their  parents  for  them)  have  had  the 


80  Personal  Beauty 

foresight  to  exact  life  contracts,  legally  enf orcible, 
and  not  to  be  broken  even  legally,  without  the 
curse  of  the  churches. 

In  many  cases,  the  woman  who  surrenders  her 
person  in  consideration  of  a  life  contract  for  her 
keep,  performs  no  labor,  not  even  caring  for  her 
own  person;  bears  no  children  (unless  inadvert- 
ently) ;  and  makes  absolutely  no  return  to  society 
for  the  labor  of  many  individuals  expended  upon 
her — except  the  personal  return  to  her  husband. 
Needless  to  say,  ''wives"  of  this  sort  are  distin- 
guished from  mistresses,  by  the  law  merely.* 
They  are  more  properly  and  accurately  designated 
as  hetairae. 

It  would  not  be  possible  to  do  away  with  legal- 
ized hetairae  altogether,  without  radical  revision 
of  our  entire  economic  system — for  the  whole 
marriage  problem,  while  not  entirely  a  problem  in 
economics,  is  so  hedged  about  with  economic  con- 
ditions that  its  solution  must  be  largely  economic. 
The  conjugal  relation  should  not  in  any  case  have 
an  economic  consideration.  Any  form  of  compen- 
sation for  sexual  relations  is  as  much  prostitution 
as  if  a  fixed  price  in  coin  were  exacted;  and  the 
legal  form  of  prostitution  is  especially  dangerous 


*The  conventional  standards  of  female  morality,  it  must  be  understood, 
are  matters  of  necessity  and  law,  not  of  personal  ethics.  The  implacable 
resentment  of  reputable  women  against  the  "weak  sister"  is  not  a  result 
of  abstract  moral  sentiment,  but  is  precisely  the  feeling  of  the  union 
laborer  against  the  "scab"  who  cuts  prices.  And  this  solidarity  of  the 
women's  "union"  against  lowering  of  the  market,  from  life  contract  to 
less,  has  been  an  important  protection  to  the  sex  as  a  whole. 


Racial  Betterment  81 

to  the  future  of  the  race.  It  must  not  be  supposed 
that  by  ' '  sexual  relations ' '  the  mere  physiological 
act  of  copulation  is  meant.  Many  parasite  wives 
are  loved,  and  many  extra-legal  mistresses  kept, 
and  cherished  because  of  their  charming  person- 
alities and  reciprocated  affection;  all  this  properly 
comes  within  the  meaning  of  *' sexual  relations." 

Not  always  does  the  husband  of  a  parasite  wife 
pay  a  price  for  her.  Frequently  she  purchases 
him,  and  keeps  him.  But  the  outcome  is  the  same 
in  those  cases,  in  which  the  **wife,"  already  in- 
dependent, uses  her  position  to  exempt  herself 
from  any  social  return. 

The  cure  for  the  evil  of  nonreproduction  of  the 
fit  and  mated  is  not  to  be  easily  found.  Perhaps  it 
can  be  effected  only  by  a  fundamental  revolution 
in  the  social  attitude  towards  marriage.  At  pres- 
ent the  marriage  of  the  ''upper  classes"  is  too 
much  a  matter  of  bargain  and  sale;  among  the 
"lower  classes"  too  much  a  matter  of  slavery. 
The  ideal  marriage,  in  which  there  is  a  practical 
copartnership,  involving  the  rearing  of  several 
children,  and  in  which  the  husband  and  wife  to- 
gether contribute  to  industry,  or  art,  or  science, 
whether  the  contribution  is  directly  credited  to 
both  or  to  the  husband  alone,  is  unfortunately 
found  principally  among  the  "middle  classes." 
Those  strata  of  society  which  practice  real  mar- 
riage will  grow  and  strengthen,  while  those  which 


82  Personal  Beauty 

practice  the  more  oriental  form  will  wither  and 
decay. 

Less  numerous  than  the  hetairae  of  the  class  we 
have  been  discussing,  but  relatively  more  impor- 
tant because  selected  from  these  women  who  pos- 
sess beauty  in  the  highest  degree,  are  public  en- 
tertainers; actresses,  singers,  chorus  girls,  and 
dancers.  A  certain  small  percentage  of  the  female 
entertainers  are  presented  because  of  qualifica- 
tions other  than  beauty;  for  histrionic  or  terp- 
sichorean  ability  or  for  mere  voice  quality,  but 
the  majority  are  selected  on  the  basis  of  sexual 
attractiveness  exclusively  or  in  large  part.  Even 
on  the  ''legitimate"  stage,  the  demands  made  on 
the  actress  are  not  similar  to  those  made  on  male 
players ;  the  most  successful  actresses  are  with  few 
exceptions  those  who  most  copiously  display  their 
personal  charms — not  merely  of  physique,  but  of 
all  the  qualities,  including  the  subtler  mental  and 
emotional  qualities,  which  affect  and  attract  the 
better  type  of  male.  It  is  true  that  we  have  our 
great  exceptions:  Bernhardt  and  others;  but  it 
must  also  be  admitted  that  while  they,  like 
Shakespeare,  are  revered,  the  larger  group  who 
merely  exploit  their  jDulchritude,  are  more  popu- 
lar. In  musical  comedy,  which  is  in  many  ways 
the  most  important  division  of  the  stage,  the  ac- 
tress without  exceptional  sexual  attractiveness  is 
soon  eliminated. 


Racial  Betterment  83 

These  professional  entertainers  are  practically 
lost  to  posterity.  While  they  are  actively  before 
the  public  they  do  not  reproduce,  and  if  they  leave 
the  stage  or  the  cabaret  for  marriage,  it  is  usu- 
ally marriage  of  the  nonfertile  kind.  Apparently, 
thousands  of  these  selected  females  enter  the  pro- 
fession every  year;  the  very  ones  who,  on  Plato's 
plan  would  be  picked  out  above  all  others  for  the 
perpetuation  of  the  race  being  thus  eliminated  al- 
most completely.* 

The  proportion  of  the  female  population  which 
possesses  distinctive  beauty  is  never  large  in  any 
community.  If  one  will  stand  on  a  street  which, 
like  Fifth  Avenue  in  New  York,  or  Charles  Street, 
in  Baltimore,  is  a  route  of  feminine  parade,  and 
count  the  number  of  women  whom  he  or  she  would 
class  as  "really  beautiful"  the  truth  of  this  gen- 
eralization will  be  borne  in  on  him.  He  will  real- 
ize, in  particular,  that  a  majority  vote  of  women 
would  never  favor  a  style  of  dress  which  should 
reveal  the  form  any  more  than  at  present,  and 

*Some  of  the  readers  of  my  manuscript  have  expressed  astonishment 
at  my  description  of  chorus  girls  and  dancers  as  the  type  of  high  devel- 
opment. This  astonishment  is  due  to  failure  to  understand  my  real  point. 
Individually,  many  of  these  women  may  be  of  undeveloped  mentality  and 
coarse  fiber:  these  are  largely  accidents  of  education  and  environment. 
Nevertheless,  these  same  women  may  be  racially  of  very  high  grade,  that 
is,  they  may  represent  stock  capable  of  high  moral  and  mental  education, 
as  well  as  of  excellent  physique.  The  racial  qualities,  transmissible  to 
progeny,  it  must  be  remembered,  are  indeijendent  of  training.  It  must 
also  be  borne  in  mind,  that  I  am  speaking  only  of  the  type  of  enter- 
tainer which  is  really  well  selected,  that  is,  which  has  the  high  as 
well  as  the  lower  qualifications.  Many  chorus  girls,  as  I  specifically  point 
out,  are  not  thoroughly  beautiful,  but  are  selected  on  an  anatomical  basis 
alone.     These,  of  course,  would  not  be  picked  "above  all  others." 


84  Personal  Beauty 

would  probably  favor  a  return  of  a  considerable 
distance  on  the  road  from  crinoline.  The  percent- 
age of  women  who  would  be  even  moderately 
presentable  as  barelegged  dancers,  regardless  of 
dancing  ability,  is  so  low  as  to  be  shocking.  From 
such  considerations  as  these  it  is  apparent  that 
the  removal  from  the  racial  streams  of  even  the 
relatively  small  number  of  physically  fit  women 
absorbed  by  the  entertaining  profession,  is  a  se- 
rious matter.  One  can  readily  imagine  what 
would  have  happened  in  the  development  of  trot- 
ting stock  if  there  had  been  continual  selection 
of  the  best  specimens  to  be  removed  from  breed- 
ing. 

Fortunately,  selection  for  the  stage  and  the 
cabaret  is  not  so  efficiently  done  as  it  might  be ;  the 
standards  of  beauty  are  to  a  certain  extent  deter- 
mined by  persons  who  are  not  good  judges  of 
feminine  beauty;  and  hence  the  maximal  harm  is 
not  accomplished.  This  is  true  at  least  of  the 
selection  of  the  majority  of  the  entertainers  typi- 
fied by  the  chorus.  Some  of  the  choruses  which 
are  the  most  painstakingly  selected  are,  on  this 
account,  less  effective  than  others  more  casually 
chosen.  Mere  bodily  proportion  and  skin  texture 
has  been  emphasized  at  the  expense  of  expression; 
the  less  important  details  of  beauty  have  obscured 
the  more  essential.  This,  however,  is  because  of 
the  relative  novelty  of  the  complete  exposure  of 


Racial  Betterment  85 

the  female  body  to  the  public  gaze,  and  will  pass 
off  as  such  exhibition  becomes  more  commonplace. 

At  first  glance,  the  damage  done  to  the  race  by 
the  selection  of  public  entertainers  from  the  fe- 
male sex,  seems  incurable.  The  public  will  have 
its  entertainment,  and  there  will  be  more  extensive 
selection  and  more  efficient  selection,  rather  than 
less.  It  is  not  however  certain  that  the  present 
results  are  necessary,  and  possibly  with  better 
economic  conditions,  and  higher  social  ideals,  we 
may  have  our  beautiful  entertainers  and  their 
progeny  too.  If  for  example,  a  girl  goes  on  the 
stage  at  eighteen  and  at  twenty-five  retires,  mar- 
ries, and  bears  a  number  of  children,  no  harm  is 
done.  If  this  were  the  normal  life-history  of  danc- 
ers and  chorus  girls,  their  selection  would  tend 
to  improve  the  racial  stock,  instead  of  causing  de- 
terioration. Unfortunately,  the  usual  story  at 
present  is  far  from  the  realization  of  this  ideal. 

The  profound  changes  now  occurring  in  our  in- 
dustrial and  domestic  conditions  are  rapidly  in- 
creasing a  sort  of  matrimonial  antiselection  which 
is  relatively  new  in  the  world.  With  the  entry  of 
women  in  significant  numbers  into  the  arts,  in- 
dustries, and  professions,  a  new  nonparental  class 
is  established.  Many  self-supporting  women 
eventually  marry,  but  many  do  not,  and  the  per- 
manently celibate  class  will  probably  increase  in 
relative  numbers  in  the  future.    To  a  certain  ex- 


86  Personal  Beauty 

tent,  the  independent  class  is  recruited  from  those 
who  are  low  in  the  scale  of  beauty,  and  hence  are 
''rejects"  from  the  matrimonial  market.  If  this 
were  the  case  with  all,  the  tendency  of  industrial 
feminism  would  be  to  improve  the  remaining 
stock;  but  conditions  are  not  so  simple.  Many 
self-supporting  women — how  many  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  estimate — have  opportunities  to  marry,  but 
set  their  own  standards  of  selection  high,  and  are 
not  content  to  accept  the  partners  of  the  grade  of- 
fered. As  a  result  not  only  are  they  lost  to  pos- 
terity, but  the  declined  males  mate  with  females 
lower  in  the  scale  of  fitness,  and  thus  a  double 
damage  is  done  to  the  stock. 

No  permanent  good  could  conceivably  result 
from  checking  the  growth  of  industrial  freedom 
of  women.  In  the  course  of  time — and  not  proba- 
bly a  long  time  either — the  disorganization  of  the 
entire  family  system  resulting  from  this  freedom 
will  render  imperative  sweeping  industrial  and 
social  changes  which,  if  we  maintain  our  ideals, 
can  be  such  as  will  reestablish  family  life  on  a 
higher  plane,  and  remove  many  of  the  injustices 
which  civilization  has  long  tolerated. 

That  the  economic  freedom  of  women  has  effects 
even  more  fundamental  than  the  production  of  a 
nonparental  class,  is  evident  to  any  one  who  dips 
beneath  the  surface  of  society.  The  ''double  stand- 
ard"  of  morals,   resulting  partly  from   ancient 


Racial  Bettermeyit  87 

necessities  of  guaranteeing  paternity,  and  partly 
from  the  universal  consideration  of  women  as 
property,  is  dissolving  at  a  rate  faster  than  casual 
observation  reveals.  So  long  as  woman  had  but 
one  means  of  providing  for  herself,  namely:  the 
sale  of  her  person ;  the  double  standard  was  easily 
maintained.  The  woman  who  once  '  *  sinned ' '  (and 
was  found  out)  could  no  longer  command  a  price 
as  a  wife,  and  was  obliged  to  sell  herself  as  a  har- 
lot. The  woman  who  now  is  employed,  at  a  liv- 
ing wage,  may  do  as  she  likes,  provided  she  does 
not  make  her  private  life  public;  and  is  yet  able 
to  continue  to  support  herself  without  falling  into 
prostitution,  since  her  employers  pay  her  for  her 
work,  not  for  her  ''morality."  One  who  under- 
stands the  psychological  principles  which  control 
the  sexual  instinct  might  predict  from  these  cir- 
cumstances the  changes  which  are  actually  oc- 
curring. From  these  principles  also,  we  can 
surely  foretell  that  the  revolution,  having  gained 
a  little  more  headway,  will  spread  far  beyond  the 
class  in  which  it  originated. 

The  abolition  of  the  ''double  standard"  may  be 
set  down,  as  a  revolution  which,  though  not  ac- 
complished, is  so  far  along  that  there  is  no  pos- 
sibility of  checking  it,  whether  we  would  like  to 
do  so  or  not.  The  proximate  effects  will  doubtless 
be  appalling,  and  yet  there  is  little  reason  to  fear 


88  Personal  Beauty 

that  ultimately  it  will  not  lead  to  a  sexual  moral- 
ity far  higher  than  the  present  standard. 

If  the  growing  freedom  of  women  does  not  lead 
to  the  recognition  of  childbearing  as  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  state — the  state,  in  its  permanency  rep- 
resenting the  interests  of  posterity — the  future  of- 
fers little  chance  of  racial  betterment.  If  this 
recognition  is  gained,  and  with  it  is  established 
the  principle  that  the  woman  who  relinquishes 
gainful  occupation  to  bear  children  is  entitled  to 
adequate  recompense  therefor,  racial  betterment 
may  be  greatly  furthered.  But  such  furtherance 
depends  also  upon  the  maintenance  of  the  family 
life  with  all  that  it  now  implies  and  more,  except 
the  dependency  of  the  wife  on  the  husband;  and 
if  this  family  life  be  lost,  the  situation  will  un- 
doubtedly be  worse  than  at  present.  The  detailed 
problems  must  be  met  as  they  arise,  but  they  will 
be  met  successfully  only  if  we  keep  our  ideals 
alive,  and  determine  our  legal,  economic,  and  so- 
cial measures  in  conformity  with  them.  Neither 
by  ignoring  conditions  and  directions  of  change, 
nor  by  applying  ancient  formulae  to  new  facts, 
can  we  maintain  social  equilibrium  and  secure 
progress.  New  wine  must  be  put  in  new  bottles, 
and  the  bottles  must  be  ready  when  the  wine  needs 
bottling. 


Racial  Betterment  89 

The  Selection  of  Male  Parents 

In  the  process  of  sexual  selection  in  civilized 
lands,  beauty  has  perhaps  played  a  smaller  role 
in  determining  the  chosen  males  than  it  has  in 
picking  out  the  female  parents.  The  physical  and 
mental  characteristics  of  the  male  which  are  vital 
for  the  future  of  the  race  have  been  more  and  more 
overshadowed  by  his  ability  to  provide  adequately 
or  luxuriously  for  wife  and  immediate  offspring. 
To  an  increasing  extent  also,  the  material  re- 
sources possessed  by  men  come  to  be  results  of 
social  accident,  rather  than  of  personal  quality 
and  efficiency  of  the  types  which  are  racially  and 
socially  desirable.  If  this  last  thesis  is  not  true, 
then  our  whole  system  of  free  education,  except 
the  merely  vocational  training,  is  based  on  a  gi- 
gantic fallacy. 

Any  man,  however  lacking  in  personal  qualifi- 
cations may,  if  he  has  wealth,  marry  a  woman  of 
high  parental  fitness,  mental  as  well  as  physical. 
He  may  not  be  able  to  obtain  certain  particular 
women  of  this  high  type,  but  he  is  sure  of  finding 
at  least  one  who  will  accept  him,  if  he  desires  such 
a  one.  This  is  true  provided  he  has  no  glaring 
positive  disqualifications;  and  even  so,  imperfec- 
tions which  are  racially  malignant,  are  lesser  ob- 
stacles than  superficial  ones;  a  syphilitic  history 
or  puny  physique  are  less  influential  than  the  loss 
of  a  leg  or  an  eye. 


90  Personal  Beauty 

In  the  various  economic  grades  of  society,  in- 
cidental financial  resources  play  their  part  in  the 
selection  of  males.  In  the  melodrama,  the  beauti- 
ful heroine  in  the  end  accepts  the  personally  de- 
sirable, but  poor,  hero,  to  the  discomfiture  of  the 
wealthy,  but  sexually  undesirable,  rival.  In  real 
life,  what  ought  to  occur  does  not  occur  so  uni- 
formly. Youth,  in  which  the  preservative  forces  of 
nature  are  more  abundant,  has  more  intelligence 
in  regard  to  all  the  details  of  mating  and  in  re- 
gard to  many  details  in  the  rearing  of  children; 
but  the  reprehensible  philosophy  of  age  sicklies 
the  flame  of  youth  with  its  pale  cast,  even  where 
it  does  not  resort  to  the  forces  of  authority  and 
economic  control. 

War,  with  all  its  evils,  has  brought  a  freshen- 
ing of  the  sexual  interests  of  women,  and  lent 
its  support  to  the  natural  tendency  to  select  for 
the  race.  In  the  military  profession  in  time  of 
war,  the  male  personal  qualities  which  preserve 
the  stock  come  once  more  into  the  prominence 
they  possessed  in  less  civilized  societies,  and  from 
which  the  machine-like  organization  of  modern  in- 
dustrialism has  driven  them.  It  may  well  be  that 
these  qualities  have  no  fuller  scope  or  power  in 
modern  armies  than  in  modern  civil  life.  This  is 
immaterial.  The  fact  is  that  the  glamor  of  ancient 
methods  of  combat  still  hangs  about  the  military 
service,  and  these  personal  qualities  attain  thereby 


Racial  Betterment  91 

a  psychological  interest  of  practical  power.*  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  recruit  tends  to  put  on,  with 
his  uniform,  a  more  primitive  and  sexually  chal- 
lenging behavior  than  he  assumes  as  a  civilian  in 
the  restraining  circumstances  of  western  society. 
To  the  women  of  the  nation,  male  personality  be- 
came, during  the  war,  of  paramount  importance, 
and  the  conflicting  values  went  almost  completely 
into  the  discard.  Whether  this  effect  will  be  car- 
ried over  into  the  postbellum  period  remains  to 
be  seen. 

It  is  entirely  improbable  that  a  war  of  less  than 
ten  years'  duration  has  any  injurious  effect  upon 
the  stocks  of  a  nation.  Conclusions  that  the  ef- 
fects of  short  wars  are  damaging  have  entirely 
neglected  the  psychological  factors,  which  are  the 
most  important  of  all.  A  war  lasting  throughout 
a  generation  w^ould  have  quite  different  effects, 
and  is  not  to  be  made  the  basis  of  arguments  con- 
cerning briefer  conflicts.  The  incidental  benefits 
which  war  confers  upon  a  nation  are  not  reasons 


*Since  writing  the  above  1  have  received  the  following  interesting 
communication  concerning  the  fascination  of  the  uniform:  "In  a  recent 
book  I  came  across  these  sentences,  which  come  nearer  expressing 
my  sentiments  on  the  subject  than  anything  I  have  ever  read: — 'but  now 
that  we  are  at  war,  there  has  awakened  in  every  woman  the  ancestral  en- 
thusiasm that  her  remote  grandmother  used  to  feel  for  the  strong  and 
aggressive  beast. — Before  a  uniform  they  feel  the  humble  and  servile 
enthusiasm  of  the  female  of  the  lower  animals  before  the  crests,  foretops, 
and    gay    plumes    of    the    fighting    males.'  " 

"P.ut  there  is  another  feeling"  (my  correspondent  adds),  "that  men 
in  uniform  always  awaken  in  women: — the  desire  to  mother  them.  Why 
is  that?"  An  almost  universal  expression  of  the  maternal  instinct  towards 
the  potential  parent!  But  with  some  women,  the  dominant  response  to  the 
uniform  (and  the  conditions  it  symbolizes)  may  be  best  described  as  an 
increase  in   coquetry. 


92  Personal  Beauty 

for  advocating  war,  but  do  indicate  the  things 
that  it  is  desirable  to  procure  in  times  of  peace. 

Another  effect  of  war — or  what  appears  as  an- 
other effect,  although  intimately  connected  with 
the  effects  just  discussed,  is  the  general  unset- 
tling of  sexual  ' '  morality ' '  among  the  men  in  the 
mobilized  forces,  and  the  women  who  are  brought 
into  direct  relation  to  these  forces.  The  effect  on 
the  male  seems  to  be  produced  by  the  greater 
sexual  opportunities  offered,*  and  the  greater  se- 
curity of  the  army  life  in  strange  surroundings. 
The  effects  of  the  war  on  certain  elements  of  the 
female  population  in  the  United  States  were  no 
less  definite.  The  "lure  of  the  uniform"  was  a 
real  phenomenon.  Undoubtedly  this  "lure"  was 
much  increased  by  its  frequent  and  detailed  dis- 
cussion in  the  press,  repeatedly  suggesting  to  im- 
pressionable young  women  the  opportunities  and 
excuses  offered  them.  Possibly  many  girls  were 
convinced  that  if  they  did  not  feel  the  much  dis- 
cussed "lure"  they  were  not  normal.  Neverthe- 
less, there  was  a  real  psychological  fact  at  the 
foundation  of  this  growth. 

It  is  probable  that  the  emphasis  on  male  per- 
sonality, and  the  stirring,  by  the  general  excite- 
ment of  the  war,  of  primitive  tendencies  and  in- 


*The  intense  desire  of  officers  and  men  for  overseas  duty,  which  grew 
after  the  first  expeditions  had  gone  over,  was  in  a  great  many  cases 
fanned  by  the  current  belief  in  the  freedom  of  sexual  life  offered  soldiers 
in  France. 


Racial  Betterment  93 

stincts,  played  a  part  in  this  phenomenon  of  fas- 
cination. A  larger  part  was  played  by  the  unset- 
tling of  social  conventions  and  restraints.  That 
girls  and  young  women  whose  lives  had  been  most 
formal  should  suddenly  be  permitted  to  be  free- 
for-all  dancing  partners  for  men  of  most  miscel- 
laneous sorts,  whose  names  even  the  girls  often 
did  not  know,  was  possibly  not  important  in  it- 
self; but  it  is  a  significant  index  of  the  terrific  up- 
heaval in  social  conventions  which  the  war 
brought. 

The  rapid  and  expected  shifting  of  personnel  un- 
doubtedly contributed  its  share  to  the  unsettling 
of  the  moral  bonds  of  women,  as  it  did  to  that  of 
the  men.  Women,  surrounded  by  strange  men, 
under  conditions  facilitating  unaccustomed  in- 
formality, and  rapid  personal  acquaintance  and 
selection ;  and  knowing  that  these  men  are  shortly 
to  be  moved  away,  with  slight  possibility  for  fu- 
ture reencounters;  find  the  maximally  favorable 
conditions  for  slipping  the  leash  of  continence. 
This  effect  was  produced  not  only  on  reckless  girls 
of  the  type  which  tend  to  go  ' '  astray ' '  at  all  times, 
but  also  on  more  mature  and  more  circumspect 
women  who  under  ordinary  peace  conditions 
would  never  have  considered  such  license  as  even 
a  remote  possibility  for  themselves. 

Whether  the  fire  of  license  which  flamed  dur- 
ing the  war  will  contribute  to  other  conflagrations 


94  Personal  Beauty 

of  different  origins,  or  whether  it  will  die  out 
leaving  only  its  ashes  and  embers,  remains  to  be 
seen.  In  either  event,  it  will  have  left  effects  upon 
the  problem  of  racial  betterment.  Sexual  re- 
straints once  thrown  off  by  the  individual  are  sel- 
dom regained ;  sexual  restraints  thrown  off  by  any 
important  social  group  are  regained  only  by  a 
slow  process  of  group-reconstruction  if  at  all. 
This  is  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the  nature 
of  such  conventions. 

The  overlimitation  of  families  by  married 
couples  of  desirable  grade  is  apparently  due  less 
to  the  tendencies  of  the  husbands  than  to  those  of 
the  wives.  It  is  a  common  fallacy  to  assume  that 
the  maternal  instinct  is  far  stronger  than  the 
paternal.  The  explicit  desire  for  children  is  com- 
mon to  young  men  of  the  better  type — and  I  be- 
lieve, more  common  than  among  young  women  of 
corresponding  grade.  Children  recognize  this  in- 
stinct and  respond  to  its  manifestations  in  a  strik- 
ing way.  It  is  indeed  something  of  which  many  a 
young  man  is  rather  ashamed — clearly  because  it 
is  explicit,  and  a  part  of  his  normal  sex  impulse. 
The  implicit  effects  of  this  instinct  are  even  more 
remarkable,  for  it  can  be  detected  in  the  whole 
cycle  of  behavior  which  finally  lands  the  man  in 
matrimony.  Whereas  women  have  strong  eco- 
nomic reasons  for  marrying,  men  as  a  rule  have 
economic  reasons  against  it:  but  although  all  the 


Racial  Betterment  95 

comforts  of  life  can  be  secured  more  easily  by 
the  bachelor  than  by  the  benedict  under  modern 
conditions,  the  one  great  thing  which  can  be  se- 
cured only  by  marriage — namely,  the  possession 
of  children — leads  out  of  bachelorhood.  This  is 
especially  true  of  the  man  who  marries  ''for  love" 
only. 

The  conservation  of  beauty  is  the  problem  of  the 
present  day  and  of  all  time.  I  have  attempted  to 
show  that  such  conservation  is  not  to  be  sought 
primarily  through  comprehensive  governmental 
direction,  nor  legal  restrictions;  nor  by  blind 
adherence  to  the  protective  regulations  of  the 
past,  however  admirable  these  may  have  been. 
Laws,  conventions,  and  economic  conditions 
should  be  so  shaped  as  to  facilitate  conservation, 
instead  of  hindering  it;  but  this  shaping,  and  the 
still  greater  work  of  active  motivation  is  to  be 
accomplished  through  education  and  publicity  di- 
rected in  the  service  of  ideals  kept  continually 
vitalized;  ideals  of  personal  values,  among  which 
beauty,  in  the  comprehensive  mental  and  physical 
interpretation  we  have  given  it,  is  paramount. 


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